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The BATH 
COMEDY 

By Agnes and Eger ton Castle 
Authors of “The Pride of Jennico,” etc. 


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COMPANY Publishers 





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The BATH 
COMEDY 

By Agnes and Egerton Castle 
Authors of “The Pride of Jennico,” etc. 


y y ^ 



©ewport FREDERICK A. STOKES 
•COMPANY Publishers 




TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 

Mbrary of CoBgrea% 
Ufflae o f the 

FEB 24 1900 

Register of Copyrights 



Frank Leslie Publishing House 

Copyright, igoo, by 
Egerton Castle 

Copyright , igoo , by 
Frederick A. Stokes Compa?iy 

4|i 

All rights reserved 


FIRST COP i, 


T he Bath G9medy 


Scene I. 

J HAT ? My sweet Lady Standish in 
V Y tears!” 

Mistress Kitty Bellairs poised her dainty per- 
son on one foot and cast a mocking, somewhat 
contemptuous, yet good-humored glance at the 
slim length of sobbing womanhood prone on the 
gilt-legged, satin-cushioned sofa. 

“Tears,” said Mistress Kitty, twirling round on 
her heel to look at the set of her new sacque in 
the mirror and admire its delicate flowered folds, 
as they caught the shafts of spring sunshine 
that pierced into the long dim room from the 
narrow street. “Tears, my dear, unless you cry 
becomingly, which I would have you know not 
one in the thousand can, are a luxury every self- 
respecting woman ought to deny herself. Now I,” 
said Mistress Kitty, and tweaked at a powdered 
curl and turned her head like a bird for a last 
glimpse at the mirror before sinking into an arm- 
chair and drawing closer to her afflicted friend, 
“have not shed a tear since I lost my first lover, 
and that is — I will not say how many years ago. 


2 


The Bath Comedy 

I was a mightily precocious child ! When I say a 
tear, mind you, ’tis a figure of speech. Far be it 
from me to deny the charm of a pearly drop — 
just one : enough to gather on the tip of the finger, 
enough just to suffuse the pathetic eye. Oh, that 
is not only permissible, ’tis to be cultivated. But 
such weeping as yours — sobs that shake you, 
tears that drench the handkerchief, redden the 
eyes, not to speak of the nose — fie ! fie it is clean 
against all reason. Come !” with a sudden gentle 
change of tone, putting her hand on the abased 
head, where fair curls luxuriated in all their na- 
tive sunshine, “what is it all about ?” 

Lady Standish slowly and languidly drew herself 
into a sitting posture, and raised a countenance 
marred out of its delicate beauty by the violent 
passion of her grief. Swimming blue eyes she 
fixed upon the Mistress Kitty’s plump dimpling 
face. 

“Alas!” she breathed upon the gust of a sigh 
that was as wet as an April breeze, and tripped 
up by a belated sob. “Alas ! you see in me the 
most miserable of women. Alas! my heart is 
broken !” 

Here the kerchief, soaked indeed beyond all pos- 
sible utility, was frantically held to streaming 
eyes once more. 


3 


The Bath Comedy 

'“Mercy,” cried the pretty widow, “you could not 
take on worse if you had the small-pox: you a 
three-months’ wife.” 

'“Ah me!” moaned Lady Standish. 

“So,” said Mistress Kitty, “he has been a brute 
again, has he? Come Julia, weep on my bosom. 
What is it now? Did he kiss you on the fore- 
head instead of on the lips? Or did he say: 
'Zounds, madam !’ when you upset a dish of tea 
over his waistcoat ? Or yet did he, could he, the 
monster! — nay it is not possible, yet men are so 
— could he have whispered that Lady Caroline 
looked — passable last night ?” 

Lady Standish rose to her feet, crumpled her 
kerchief in one small hand, and faced her friend 
with tragic passion. 

“It is useless to blind myself,” she said. “Cease 
to gibe at me, pray, Mistress Bellairs; I must 
face the truth ! My husband loves me no longer. 
Oh! Kitty! Kitty,” dropping from her height of 
tragedy very quickly and landing on a whimper 
again, “is it not sad? I have tried, Heaven is 
my witness, to win him back by the tenderest 
love, by the most pitiful pleading. He has seen 
me weep and pine. ‘Rob me of your love,’ I have 
told him, ‘and you rob me of life.’ And he, he — 
oh, how shall I tell you ! As the days go by he is 


4 


The Bath Comedy 

with me less and less. He walks abroad with 
others. His evenings he gives to strangers — ay, 
and half his nights — while I may sob myself to 
sleep at home. I saw him to-day but for two 
minutes — ’twas half an hour ago. He entered 
here upon me, looking, ah Kitty ! as only he can 
look, the most elegant and beautiful of men. I 
was singing, piping as a poor bird may to strive 
and call its mate to the nest. He passed through 
the room without a word, without a sign ; he that 
used to say ’twas heaven to sit and listen to my 
voice. ‘What!’ I exclaimed as he reached the 
door, ‘not a word for poor Julia?’ Kitty, at the 
sound of that cry, wrung from my heart, he 

turned and frowned, and said (Oh, oh, oh.)” 

“Ha!” said Mistress Kitty, “what said he?” 
(“Heaven help him,” said she aside; “the wom- 
an’s a fountain.”) 

“He said,” sobbed Julia, “ ‘Mayn’t a man even 
go for a stroll?’ Oh, had you but heard the cold 
indifferent tone, you would have understood how 
it cut me to the heart. I ran to him and laid my 

hand upon his sleeve, and he said ” 

Again grief overcame her. 

“Well, what said he?” 

“He said — oh, oh — he said, ‘Julia, don’t paw 


The Bath Comedy 


5 


Mistress Kitty Bellairs, the reigning toast of 
Bath, the prettiest woman, in the estimation of 
her admirers, in all England, and the wittiest, 
laughed low to herself, then rose from her chair, 
took her tall friend by the shoulders, and walked 
her up to the mirror. 

“Look at yourself,” said she, “and look at me.” 
Lady Standish winced. The contrast between 
her own dishevelled hair, her marble swollen 
countenance, her untidy morning gown, and the 
blooming perfection of the apparition beside her, 
was more than she could contemplate. Kitty 
Bellairs — as complete in every detail of beauty 
as a carnation — smiled upon herself sweetly. 

“My dear,” said she, “I have had thirty-seven 
declared adorers these three years, and never one 
tired of me yet. Poor Bellairs,” she said with a 
light sigh, “he had two wives before me, and he 
was sixty-nine when he died, but he told me with 
his last breath that ’twas I gave him all the joy 
he ever knew.” 

Lady Standish ceased weeping as suddenly as if 
her tears had been mechanically turned off. She 
regarded the widow earnestly. 

“Now, child,” said Mistress Bellairs, with all the 
authority of her twenty-six years, “here we have 
been four weeks acquainted, and you have more 


6 


The Bath Comedy 


than once done me the honor of saying that you 
considered me your friend.” 

“ Tis so,” said Lady Standish. 

“Then listen to me. There are three great rules 
to be observed in our dealings with men. The 
first rule comprises an extraordinary number of 
minor details, but briefly and comprehensively it 
runs thus: Never be monotonous! Second rule: 
Never let a man be too sure of you ! Oh ! that is 
a wonderful wise maxim : reflect upon it. Third : 
Never, never let a man see how — well, how far 
from lovely you can look! Tush, tush, you are 
a better-looking woman than I am, but not when 
you have been blubbering, and not when you are 
fretful.” 

Lady Standish suddenly sat down as if her limbs 
could support her no more. She looked up at 
the ceiling with tear-dimmed eyes. 

“Pray,” said Mistress Kitty inquisltorially ex 
cathedra, “how many times a day do you tell that 
unfortunate man that you love him ? And, worse 
still, how many times a day do you want him 
to say that he loves you? I vow ’tis enough to 
drive him to cards, or wine, or something in- 
finitely worse that also begins with a w! And, 
pray, if you spend all you have, and empty your 
purse, do you think your purse becomes a very 


The Bath Comody 


7 


valuable possession? Tis a mere bit of leather. 
Nay, nay, keep your gold, and give it out piece 
by piece, and do not give it at all unless you get 
good change for it. Oh,” cried Kitty, a fine 
flush of indignation rising scarlet behind her 
rouge, “I marvel that women should be such 
fools ! — to act the handmaid where they should 
ever rule as mistress ; to cast forth unsought what 
they should dole out only to the supplicant on 
bended knee. Hath a man ever had from me an 
unsolicited avowal? Have I ever thrown the 
most ardent lover more than a ‘perhaps’ and ‘it 
may be,’ a smile, a dimple, a finger-tip? (What 
they have stolen I have not given, that is obvious ! 
And, besides, ’tis neither here nor there.) And 
pray, Lady Standish, since when have you left off 
putting on rouge and having your hair tied and 
powdered, and wearing a decent gown of morn- 
ings and a modish sacque, and a heel to that 
pretty foot, a jewel in the ear and a patch be- 
neath the lip?” 

Lady Standish had ceased contemplating the ceil- 
ing ; she was looking at her friend. 

“But, madam,” she said, “this is strange advice. 
Would you have me coquette with my husband, 
as if — God forgive me for even saying such a 
thing — as if I were not wife, but mistress?” 


8 


The Bath Comedy 


“La, you there,” said Mistress Bellairs, and 
clapped her hands, “there is the whole murder 
out ! You are the man’s lawful, honest wife, and 
therefore all tedium and homeliness, all fretful 
brow and tearful eye. God save us! who shall 
blame him if he seek a pleasant glint of vice to 
change him of you ?” 

There fell a silence. Lady Standish rose indig- 
nant, grew red, grew pale, caught a glimpse of 
herself again in the mirror, shrank from the 
sight, and crept back to the sofa with a humble 
and convicted air. Then she cast a look of 
anguished pleading at Mistress Bellairs’ bright 
unfeeling countenance. 

“Tell me,” she said with a parched lip, “what 
shall I do?” 

“Do !” cried the widow, rising with a brisk laugh, 
“get some powder into your hair, and some colour 
into those cheeks ! And when Sir Jasper returns 
(he left you in tears, he will be sullen when he 
comes home; ’tis a mere matter of self-defence) 
let him find you gay, distraite; say a sharp thing 
or two if you can; tell him you do not need his 
company this afternoon. Ah, and if you could 
make him jealous ! ’Tis a very, very old trick, but 
then, you see, love is a very old game, the oldest 
of all. Make him jealous, my dear, make him 


9 


The Bath Comedy 

jealous and you’ll win the rubber yet!” 
“Jealous!” cried the three-months’ wife, and all 
the blood of the innocent country girl leapt to 
her brow. “Oh, madam, how could that be?” 
“Look out a beau, nay, two or three, ’tis safer! 
Talk discreetly with them in the Pump-Room, 
let them fan you at the ball, let them meet you in 
Orange-Grove. Or, if you have not spirit enough 
— and indeed, my sweet life, you sadly lack 
spirit — start but an imaginary one, merely for 
the use of your lord and master : I wager you he 
will rise to the fly.” 

“I am afraid Sir Jasper could be very jealous,” 
said the other uneasily. “I remember before we 
were wed, when my cousin Harry would ride 
with me to the meet, oh, how angry Sir Jasper 
was ! He swore he would shoot himself, ay, and 
he was all for shooting Harry, too.” 

“But he was not the less ardent with you on 
the score of it, I’ll warrant him,” said the ex- 
perienced Mistress Bellairs. 

“Ah, no,” said Lady Standish, and her lip 
trembled over a smile, while the ready water 
sprang to her eyelashes, and : “Ah, no !” she said 
again. “Indeed, he loved me then very ardently.” 
“And he’ll love you so still if you have but a spark 
of courage. Get you to your room,” said the 


io The Bath Comedy 

widow, goodhumouredly, ‘‘bustle up and play 
your part. Where is that woman of yours?” 
She pushed Lady Standish before her as she 
spoke, herself rang the call-bell for the tire- 
woman, and gave a few pregnant suggestions to 
that worthy, who advanced all sour smiles and 
disapproving dips. Then she strolled back into 
the drawing-room and paused a moment as she 
slipped on her long gloves. Next she drew a 
letter from her pocket and began to read it with 
a thoughtful brow. 

“No, no, Sir Jasper,” she said half aloud, “you’re 
a fine gentleman, and a pretty fellow, you have 
a neat leg, and an eloquent turn of speech, but I 
will not have the child’s heart broken for the 
amusement of an idle day.” 

She took the letter between each little forefinger 
and thumb as if to tear it, thought better of it, 
folded it again and thrust it back into its place 
of concealment. 

Presently she smiled to herself, and walked out of 
the long open window across the little strip of 
garden, and so through the iron gate into the 
shady back street. 


The Bath Comedy n 

Scene II. 

S IR JASPER STANDISH halted on the 
flags of the Royal Crescent in front of his 
own door and his face darkened. He took a 
pinch of snuff. 

“Now ! I shall find My Lady in tears. What a 
strange world it is ! The girl you woo is as merry 
as a May day: the wife you wed is like naught 
but early November. Equinoctial gales and 
water enough to drown the best spirits that ever 
were stilled. ’Tis a damp life,” said Sir Jasper, 
“and a depressing.” 

He sighed as the door was thrown open by the 
footman, and crossed the hall into the morning- 
room, where he had left his lady weeping. He 
beheld a flowered brocade, a very shapely back, 
and a crisp powdered head outlined against the 
window, and thought he had come upon a visitor 
unawares. 

“I crave ten thousand pardons,” quoth he, and 
swept from his gallant head his knowing three- 
cornered hat. But slowly the figure at the win- 
dow turned and he saw his wife’s eyes strangely 
brilliant over two pink cheeks, beneath the snow 
of her up-piled hair. 

“Julia !” said he in amaze, and stared and stared 


12 


The Bath Comedy 


again. (“And did I doubt my own taste?” thought 
he to himself. “Why, she is the prettiest woman in 
Bath!”) “Expecting visitors, Julia?” He smiled 
as he spoke : in another minute that arm, shining 
pearl-like from the hanging lace of her sleeve, 
would be round his neck, and those lips (how red 
they were, and what a curve!) would be upon 
his. Well, a loving woman had her uses. 

“No,” said Lady Standish to his query. She 
dropped the word with a faintly scornful smile, 
and a dimple came and went at the corner of her 
lip. There was a patch just above the dimple. 
Then she turned away and looked forth into the 
still, solemn, grey and green Crescent as before. 
Sir Jasper stood bewildered. Then he put his 
hat upon a table and came up to his wife and 
placed his arm around her waist. 

“My sweet life,” said he, “your gown is vastly 
becoming.” 

“Sir Jasper,” said Lady Standish, “you do me 
proud.” She slipped from his embrace, sketched 
a curtesy, and moved to the next window. 

Sir Jasper passed his hand across his brow. That 
was Julia, Julia his wife, sure enough; and yet, 
faith, it was a woman he did not know ! 

“You are mightily interested in the Crescent,” 
said he, with some humor. 


The Bath Comedy 


*3 


My lady shrugged her shoulders. 

‘‘I believe you were vexed with me this morning, 
love,” said he. 

“I vexed?” said she. “Nay, why should I be 
vexed ?” and then she tapped her foot and looked 
at the clock. “These servants grow monstrously 
unpunctual,” she said; “are we not to dine to- 
day ?” 

He glanced down at the tapping shoe, its little 
pointing toe and curving heel. ’Twas a smart 
shoe, and boasted a diamond buckle in a knot of 
rose-coloured ribbon. 

“Egad !” said he, “I doubt if there is another foot 
in Bath that could slip into that case.” 

And Sir Jasper was a connoisseur ! His opinion 
of himself, his faith in his own discrimination 
(which had waned sadly these last days) began 
to rise again, not disagreeably. He smirked. My 
Lady Standish, who, after a way that only 
women can practise, seemed absorbed in the con- 
templation of the empty Crescent the while she 
was intent upon each shade of expression upon 
her husband’s countenance, felt a sudden glow 
of confidence in her own powers that she had 
never known before. The game she had started 
with a beating heart and a dry throat began to 
have a certain charm of its own. Was it so 


The Bath Comedy 


i4 

easy really? Was a man so lightly swayed? 
There was contempt in the thought, and yet 
pleasure. Was all a woman’s loving heart to 
count for so little, and a pretty gown, a new 
shoe, a coquettish manner for so much? Ah, 
there was bitterness in that ! But yet the im- 
mediate result of this new method : that look in 
his eye, that softening of his lip, it was too sweet 
to be forborne. Kitty was right ! 

Sir Jasper took her hand. 

“It wants,” said he, “full half an hour to dinner- 
time, love. Nay, do not draw your hand away. 
You are vexed with me? I left you weeping, 
’twas unkind.” 

“Weeping?” said Julia, and her heart fluttered to 
her throat, so that she could hardly speak, and 
Kitty’s maxims kept dancing before her eyes 
as if written in letters of fire. “Make him jealous 
— oh, if you make him jealous you will win the 
rubber yet !” 

“If I wept,” said she, “must my tears have been 
for you?” 

“How now?” said Sir Jasper, and dropped the 
little hand that struggled so gently yet deter- 
minedly to be free. 

“Oh, dear me,” said Lady Standish, “how droll 
you men are !” She shrugged her shoulders and 


The Bath Comedy 15 

laughed affectedly. Like all budding actresses 
she over-did the part. But Sir Jasper was too 
much stirred, too much bewildered to be critical. 
Moreover his armour was not without vulnerable 
joints, and with a wanton word she had found 
one at the first pass. 

“How now ?” said he. “Madam, and what might 
that mean?” 

Lady Standish trilled the bar of a song, and 
again directed her attention to the view. 
“Julia,” said her husband in a deep voice. “Julia,” 
he repeated with a threatening growl of pas- 
sion. 

“Sir?” she said, and tilted her little head. 

“Who then were your tears for, if they were not 
for me? What signify these manners? What 
do these insinuations mean? By Jupiter, I will 
have the truth!” His face flushed, the veins on 
his temples swelled, his nostrils became dilated. 
Lady Standish lifted the hanging lace of her 
sleeve with one hand and examined it minutely. 

“I would rather,” she said, and her voice shook, 
“I would rather you did not question me, Sir 
Jasper.” Then she flashed upon him in anger, 
swift and lovely as he had never seen her flash 
before. “You go your own way free enough,” 
she said. “These last three weeks you have not 


1 6 The Bath Comedy 

spent one evening in my company, and half your 
days are given to others of whom I know noth- 
ing. Oh, I am not complaining, sir ! I did com- 
plain, but that is over. I was wrong, for I see 
adversities have their advantages/’ Here she 
smiled. (Had the man but known how near she 
was to tears!) “Your neglect leaves me free.” 
“Free!” cried Sir Jasper, and choked. “Free! 
Good heavens, free! What in the name of God 
do you mean? Free, madam?” 

“Sir Jasper,” said Lady Standish, looking at him 
very earnestly, “you will never hear me ask again 
whose society it is you find so much more at- 
tractive than your wife’s.” 

“Indeed,” cried Sir Jasper, and hesitated upon a 
gust of anger, at a loss in which direction to drive 
it forth. 

“No,” said my lady, “and I expect the same good 
taste from you. ’Tis not too much to ask. In- 
deed you should rejoice if I have found consola- 
tion for your absence.” 

He broke out with a fearful oath, and almost 
leaped upon her. 

“Consolation!” He plunged his hands into his 
powdered hair, and quivered into silence for the 
very impotence of words. 

“I said ‘if,’ ” said she. She was surprised to 


The Bath Comedy 17 

find how readily the words came to her ; and yet 
her hands were clammy with fright, and her 
breath ran short between her rouged lips. “Let 
us leave it at the ‘if/ ” 

She turned to the window and leant against it, 
drew her kerchief and fanned herself. 

Passing along the railings opposite the Crescent, 
not twelve yards distant, a tall, slender young 
gentleman of attractive appearance, though very 
dark in complexion, caught sight of her lovely 
glowing face, stared first in unconscious admira- 
tion, then with recognition, and finally, blushing 
swarthily, saluted with some appearance of agita- 
tion. Lady Standish, aware that her husband 
had approached close behind her, and hearing 
in every creak of his satin coat the flattering emo- 
tion of his senses, felt herself driven more and 
more by the unknown demon of mischief that had 
taken possession of her. She fluttered her little 
handkerchief back at the young gentleman with 
a gesture that almost indicated the wafting of a 
kiss. 

“Death and damnation,” cried Sir Jasper,” be- 
fore my very eyes !” 

He seized her by the wrist and flung her down 
upon the settee. “Nay,” he cried, “there may be 
husbands that would put up with this, but I am 


1 8 


The Bath Comedy 


not of them. So that is the Consoler! That is 
the Beau for whom you prink yourself with such 
fine feathers, whom you lie in wait for at the win- 
dow to make signals to and smirk at ! Oh, my in- 
nocent country daisy! Faugh! I might have 
known you were too fond — hypocrite !” He 

dashed at the window and burst its fastenings. 
“Hey, you, you my Lord Verney, a word with 
you!” Sir Jasper was already foaming at the 
mouth. 

The slim gentleman paused, surprised. 

“Oh, heavens!” cried Lady Standish, “what have 
I done? Sir Jasper! my husband!” She threw 
herself upon him. “Sir Jasper, what do you 
suspect? Oh, heavens!” She was half fainting 
and scarce could articulate a coherent word. “It 
was all to tease you. It was but the sport of an 
idle moment. Oh, I implore you believe me, be- 
lieve me !” 

“Ay, deny!” cried he. “Deny what I have seen 
with my own eyes! Let me go, madam.” He 
thrust her aside, and bare-headed dashed down 
the stairs and out of the house towards Lord Ver- 
ney, who, with a bashful, yet a pleasant smile, be- 
gan to retrace his steps. 

“ ’Tis a fair day, Sir Jasper,” said he courteous- 
ly, and then became aware of Sir Jasper’s con- 


The Bath Comedy i9 

vulsed face, and noted that Lady Standish, whom 
but a moment before he had beheld all smiling 
beauty, now clung despairingly to the window- 
post, her countenance ghastly behind her rouge. 
Lord Verney was a shy young man. 

“Ah — ah, good morning,” said he, bowed po- 
litely, and turned with celerity. 

Sir Jasper flung a look of infinite derision and 
contempt towards his wife. 

“You have chosen,” it seemed to say, “a pretty 
hare.” Then he arrested the slim swift figure 
with an aggressive shout : 

“Stand — stand, Lord Verney — Lord Verney — a 
word with you.” 

The youth stopped, wheeled round, and : 

“I am at your service,” said he. A certain pallor 
had replaced the ingenuous young blushes upon 
his cheek, but into his eye there sprang a fine 
spark of spirit. 

Sir Jasper marched upon him and only halted 
when his six feet of sinewy bulk were within a 
yard of the stripling’s willowy shape. His hot- 
red-brown eyes shot fire and fury, death and an- 
nihilation upon the innocent young peer. His 
full lips endeavoured to sneer, but rage distorted 
them to a grimace through which his white teeth 
shone forth ferociously. 


20 


The Bath Comedy 


‘‘Come, come, we understand each other,” said 
he; “will you walk with me? There is no time 
like the present and a couple of friends are easy 
to come by.” 

“ ’Tis vastly well,” said Lord Verney with an 
attempt at dignity that betrayed the boy in every 
line of him. Then all at once colour flushed into 
his face again, and his rigid demeanour was 
broken up. “Come, devil take it all, Sir Jasper,” 
said he, “and what is it about?” 

Sir Jasper threw bloodshot eyes upwards. 
“This fellow,” quoth he, appealing to Heaven — 
“oh! this pretty fellow! You want reasons, my 
Lord Verney?” 

Lord Verney blushed and stammered. Gad, he’d 
like to know what he had done. He was at Sir 
Jasper’s disposition, of course, but before draw- 
ing swords on a man 

Sir Jasper uttered a sound which was between a 
groan and a roar. He indicated with sweeping 
gesture the figure of Lady Standish strained in 
anguish watching, clinging still to the window- 
post. Then he hissed : 

“I know !” 

“Sir Jasper !” 

“I know, I tell you,” repeated Sir Jasper, “let 
that suffice.” 


21 


The Bath Comedy 

’“Good heavens,” gasped Lord Verney, “here is 
some most grievous mistake. Do you mean, sir 
— am I to understand, Sir Jasper — ? Tis mon- 
strous.” White dismay and crimson confusion 
chased each other across his candid brow. 
“Surely you do not mean me to understand that 
Lady Standish has any connection with this ex- 
traordinary scene?” 

Sir Jasper’s trembling hand was furiously up- 
lifted, then blindly sought his sword hilt, and 
then dropped in impotent disgust at his side. 
“My lord,” said he, “Lady Standish is the pearl 
of womanhood, I would have you know it ! There 
never breathed a female more virtuously attached 
to her husband and her duty — I would have you 
know it !” His face was quite horrible to look at 
in its withering sarcasm. “My quarrel with you, 
sir, is — ” He paused and cast a roving eye 
upon the young gentleman, who now began to 
show unequivocal signs of fear. A jealous hus- 
band, a contingency that may have to be met any 
day — but a raving maniac ! 

“ ’Tis the shape of your leg that mispleases me, 
sir. You have a vile calf, I cannot endure that 
so offensive an outline should pass and repass 
my windows.” 

*‘I understand, Sir Jasper, yes, yes,” said Lord 


22 


The Bath Comedy 


Verney soothingly, backing as he spoke and cast- 
ing nervous eyes round the empty street. “And 
so, good morning.” 

He bowed and turned. 

“Rat!” cried Sir Jasper, and shot forth a clutch- 
ing hand. 

“I will bear it in mind,” cried Lord Verney. 
“Good-morning, good-morning !” 

He was fleeing away on a swift foot. 

“Rat ! Rat !” screamed the enraged baronet, start- 
ing in pursuit. But his passion made him clumsy. 
He stumbled, lurched, struck his foot against a 
stone, fell upon his knee, and rose in another 
mood : one of darkling sullen determination for 
revenge. 

Lord Verney was a timid young man. Had it 
been with anyone else that this scene in the Royal 
Crescent had taken place all Bath would have 
known within the hour that Sir Jasper Standish 
had been seized with sudden lunacy. 

But Lord Verney was of those who turn a word 
over three times before they speak and then 
say something else. Moreover, he was not sure 
that he himself had cut a brilliant figure in the 
amazing duologne, so he held his tongue upon it. 
As the day grew, however, he began to have a 
curious recollection of Lady Standish’s lovely 


The Bath Comedy 


^3 


smiling greeting and of that little gesture with 
the white handkerchief, which had almost seemed 
like the blowing of a kiss (here his very ears 
would grow hot), then of Sir Jasper’s inexpli- 
cable wrath, and of the stricken figure by the win- 
dow! Could it be? ’Twas impossible! Nay, but 
such things had been. When the dusk fell he 
made up his mind and sought the counsels of that 
fashionable friend who was kind enough to 
pilot his inexperience through the first shoals and 
rocks of Bath life. This gentleman’s name was 
Spicer. He called himself Captain : of what regi- 
ment no one knew. 

Scene III. 

S IR JASPER came striding back to the house. 

In the morning-room he passed his wife 
without a word. 

“Sir Jasper,” quoth she, and shot out a timid 
hand. “Oh, Sir Jasper, will you not listen to 
me? This is the most terrible mistake. Sir Jas- 
per, I swear I am true to you, not only in deed 
but in every inmost thought.” 

“Do not swear, madam,” said he, and shut the 
door in her face. 

Ten minutes later he sallied forth again. She 


24 


The Bath Comedy 


heard his steps ring out : they sounded very des- 
perate. She sat on the pink-striped settee in a 
misery too deep this time for tears. How pue- 
rile, how far away, seemed the morning’s storm. 
She sat with her hands locked and her eyes start- 
ing, revolving terrible possibilities, and fruitless 
plans for preventing them. Dinner was served 
in vain. Her ladyship’s woman brought her a 
dish of tea. This poor Julia drank, for she felt 
faint and weary. Then a suddem thought struck 
her. 

“ ’Tis Mistress Bellairs who made the mischief,” 
she thought, “now she must mend it.” She 
dashed off a despairing note to the lady and 
dispatched her black page with all possible ce- 
lerity. 

“ I have followed your advice,” ran the quivering lines, 
“to my undoing. You told me to make Sir Jasper 
jealous ; I tried to make him jealous, and succeeded far 
too well. He fancies there is something between me and 
Lord Verney. Poor young man, I have spoken to him 
but three times in my life ! There will be a duel, and 
they will both be killed. Come to me, dear Mistress 
Bellairs, and see what is to be done, for I am half dead 
with fear and anguish.” 

The dusk was falling when, with incredible celer- 
ity, the sedan-chair of Mistress Bellairs rounded 
the corner at a swinging pace ; her bell-like 


^5 


The Bath Comedy- 

voice might be heard from within rating the 
chairmen with no gentle tone for their sluggish- 
ness. 

“ Tis snails ye are — snails, not men. La ! is there 
one of you that is not a great-grandfather ? It 
is not, I would have you know, a coffin that you 
are carrying, but a chair. Oh, Gad, deliver me 
from such lazy scoundrels !” 

In a storm she burst open the door; in a whirl- 
wind tore through the passage. Lady Standish’s 
obsequious footmen she flounced upon one side. 
Into that afflicted lady’s presence she burst with 
undiminished vigour. 

“So,” said she, “these are fine goings on ! And 
why Lord Verney, may I inquire?” 

“Oh, Mistress Bellairs,” ejaculated her friend, 
with a wail, “ ’tis indeed terrible. Think of Sir 
Jasper’s danger, and all because of my folly in lis- 
tening to your pernicious advice.” 

“My advice!” cried Mistress Kitty. “My ad- 
vice — this is pretty hearing! Here, where is 
that woman of yours, and where are those stuf- 
fed owls you keep in the hall? What is the use 
of them if they do not do their business? Light 
up, light up — who can speak in the dark?” She 
ran from one door to another, calling. 

“Oh, dear” sighed Lady Standish, and leant her 


i6 


The Bath Comedy 


distraught head against the cushions. 

“Come, come,” cried Mistress Bellairs, heedless 
of the presence of footmen with tapers, and lady’s- 
maid with twinkling curl paper. “Sit up this 
minute, Julia, and tell me the whole from the 
beginning. It is no use your trying to extenu- 
ate, for I will know all that has happened.” 

But before her friend, whose back was begin- 
ning to stiffen under this treatment, had time to 
collect her thoughts sufficiently for a dignified 
reply, Mistress Kitty herself proceeded with 
great volubility: 

“And so, madam, not content with having a new 
young husband of your own, you must fix upon 
Lord Verney for your manoeuvres. Why, he has 
never so much as blinked the same side of the 
room as you. Why, it was but yester-night he 
vowed he hardly knew if you were tall or short. 
Put that out of your head, my Lady Standish, 
Lord Verney is not for you. Oh, these country 
girls !” 

Lady Standish rose quivering with rage. 

“Be silent, madam,” she said, “your words have 
neither sense nor truth. I was ill-advised enough 
to listen to your unwomanly counsels. I tried 
to deecive my husband and God has punished 


2 


The Bath Comedy 

“Ah,” said Mistress Kitty, “deceit is a very griev- 
ous sin. I wonder at you, that you must fix 
upon Lord Verney. Oh, Julia!” here her voice 
grew melting and her large brown eyes suffused. 
“You had all Bath,” she said, “and you must fix 
upon Lord Verney. The one man I thought 
. . . the one man I could have. . . . Oh, 

how did you dare? Nay! It is a blind,” she 
cried, flaming again into indignation and catch- 
ing her friend by the wrist. “There was more 
in your game than you pretend, you sly and silken 
hypocrite ! If he is killed, how will you feel 
then ?” 

“Oh,” exclaimed Lady Standish, “cruel woman! 
Is this your help? Sir Jasper killed !” 

“Sir Jasper? Sir Fiddle!” cried Mistress Kitty, 
with a fine scorn. “Who cares for Sir Jasper? 
Tis my Harry I think of. Oh, oh !” cried the 
widow, and burst into tears. 

Lady Standish stood confounded. 

“What!” cried she, “you love Lord Verney? 
“ ’Tis the only man of them,” sobbed Kitty, “who 
does not pester me with his devotion — the only 
one who does not come to my call like a lap-dog. 
If I look at him he blushes for bashfulness, and 
not for love; if his hand shakes it is because 
he is so sweetly timid, not because my touch 


28 


The Bath Comedy 


thrills him. I had set my heart/’ said Mistress 
Kitty through her clenched teeth — “I had set 
my heart upon Lord Verney, and now you must 
needs have him ki — ki — killed before I have even 
had time to make him see the colour of my eyes.” 
“Oh, oh!” sighed Julia Standish, still beyond 
tears. 

And : 

“Oh!” sobbed Kitty Bellairs, quite forgetful of 
red noses and swollen lids. 

There was a silence broken only by the sobs of 
the widow and the sighs of the wife. 

Then said Mistress Kitty, in a small, strangled 
voice : “Let this be a lesson to you never to de- 
ceive.” 

“I never told a single lie before,” moaned Lady 
Standish. 

“Ah!” said Kitty, “there never was a single lie, 
madam. A lie is wed as soon as born, and its 
progeny exceeds that of Abraham.” 

The two women rose from their despairing post- 
ures, and, mutually pushed by the same impulse, 
approached each other. 

“What is to be done now?” said Lady Standish. 
“What is to be done?” said Mistress Bellairs. 
“Let us seek Sir Jasper,” said his wife, “and tell 
the whole truth.” 


The Bath Comedy 29 

Kitty, through wet eyelashes, shot a glance of 
withering scorn upon her friend. 

“Ay,” she said, sarcastically, “that would be use- 
ful truly. Why, child, let you and I but go and 
swear your innocence to Sir Jasper, and ’twill be 
enough to establish you steeped in guilt in the 
eyes of every sensible person for the rest of your 
life. No,” said she, “better must be thought of 
than that. We must act midwife to the lie and 
start the little family as soon as possible.” 

“I will lie no more,” said Lady Standish. 

“I am told,” said Mistress Kitty, musingly, “that 
Lord Verney has learnt swordmanship abroad.” 
“Oh, cruel !” moaned the other. 

Mistress Kitty paused, bit a taper finger, 
scratched an arch eyebrow, drew white brows to- 
gether, pondered deeply. Suddenly her dimples 
peeped again. 

“I have it !” said she. “Tis as easy as can be. 
Will you leave it to me ?” 

Lady Standish began to tremble. She had wept 
much, she had not eaten, her heart was full of 
terror. Faintness she felt creep upon her. 

“What will you do?” she said, grasping after the 
vanishing powers of reflection with all her fail- 
ing strength. 

“Do,” said Mistress Bellairs. “First of all, pre- 


3 ° 


The Bath Comedy 


vent the duel. Will that serve you ?” 

“Oh, yes,” cried Julia, and grew livid behind 
her paint. 

“She has got the vapours again,” thought the 
other. “What a poor weak fool it is !” 

But these vapours came in handy to her plans ; 
she was not keen to restore Lady Standish too 
promptly. She called her woman, however, and 
helped her to convey the sufferer to her room and 
lay her on the couch ; then she advised sal vola- 
tile and sleep. 

“Leave it all to me,” she murmured into the lit- 
tle ear uppermost upon the pillow; “I will save 
you.” 

Lady Standish groped for her friend’s hand with 
her own that was cold and shaking. The ladies 
exchanged a clasp of confidence, and Mistress 
Bellairs tripped down to the drawing-room. 
*‘Now,” said she to herself, “let us see.” Sudden 
inspiration sparkled in her eye. She plunged her 
hand into the depth of the brocade pocket dang- 
ling at her side, drew forth sundry letters, and 
began to select with pursed lips. There was Sir 
Jasper’s own. Those gallant well-turned lines, 
that might mean all or nothing, as a woman 
might choose to take them — that was of no use 
for the present. Back it went into the brocade 


The Bath Comedy 


3i 


pocket. There was a scrawl from Harry Verney 
declining her invitation to a breakfast-party be- 
cause he had promised (with two “m’s”) my 
Lord Scroop to shoot (with a “u” and an “e”). 
Kitty Bellairs looked at it very tenderly, folded 
it with a loving touch, and replaced it in its nest. 
Here was a large folded sheet, unaddressed, filled 
inside with bold black writing. A crisp auburn 
curl was fastened across the sheet by an emer- 
ald-headed pin. 

“Most cruel, most beautiful, most kind!” were its ar- 
dent words, “most desired, most beloved! Was it last 
night or a hundred years ago that we met? This is the 
lock of hair the loveliest hand in all the world deigned to 
caress. It became upon that moment far too precious a 
thing for its poor owner. He ventures, therefore, to 
offer it at the shrine of the goddess who consecrated it. 
Will she cast it from her? Or will she keep it and let it 
speak to her, every hair a tongue, of the burning flame 
of love that she has kindled in this mortal breast? Did I 
dream, or can it be true ? — there was a patch above the 
dimple at the corner of your lip. I kissed it. Oh, it 
must have been a dream ! One word, fairest: — When 
may I dream again ? 

“ Your own and ever your own. 

“ P. S. — The lock was white before you touched it, but 
you see you have turned it to fire ! ” 

Mistress Kitty read and smiled. “The very 
thing!” Then she paused. “But has the woman 
a dimple?” said she. “Has she? Never mind, 


2 


The Bath Comedy 


something must be risked. Now, if I know men, 
Sir Jasper will spend the whole night prowling 
about, trying to discover confirmation of his sus- 
picions. ’’ 

The letter was folded up. “It must seem as if 
dropped from my lady’s bosom. Here, at the 
foot of the sofa, just peeping from behind the 
foot-stool ! A jealous eye cannot miss it !” 

The deed was done. 

She caught up her cloak and hood, glanced cheer- 
fully round the room, satisfied herself that the 
letter showed itself sufficiently in the candle- 
light to attract a roving eye and, bustling forth, 
summoned her chair for her departure in a far 
better humour that that which had marked her 
arrival. 

“They could not fight till morning,” she said to 
herself, as she snuggled against the silken sides. 
“Now heaven speed my plan!” She breathed a 
pious prayer as her bearers swung her onwards. 


Scene IV. 

F OR the first time for over a fortnight Sir Jas- 
per returned to the very fine mansion he 
had taken for the Bath season, before the small 


The Bath Comedy 


33 


hours. 

It was about ten o’clock of the evening that his 
impatient hand upon the knocker sent thunder 
through the house, startled the gambling footmen 
in the hall below and the fat butler from his com- 
fortable nook at the housekeeper’s fireside and 
his fragrant glass of punch. The nerves of the 
elder footman were indeed so shaken that he 
dropped an ace from his wide cuff as he swung 
back the door. Breathing hot lemon peel, the 
butler hurried to receive his master’s cloak and 
cane. The ribbons of Mistress Tremlet’s cap 
quivered over the staircase : the whole household 
was agog with curiosity, for her ladyship’s 
woman had told them to a tear the state of her 
ladyship’s feelings. 

Sir Jasper cursed freely as he entered, struck 
the younger footman with his cane over the 
calves for gaping, requested a just Creator to 
dispose of his butler’s soul with all possible 
celerity, and himself obligingly suggested the 
particular temperature most suitable to it; then 
strode he to the drawing-room with the brief 
announcement that he expected the visit of some 
gentlemen. 

He looked around scowlingly for his wife. The 
room was empty and desolate in spite of bright 


34 


The Bath Comedy 


chandeliers. He paused with a frowning brow, 
stood a moment irresolute, then shaped his course 
for the stairs and mounted with determined 
foot. In my lady’s dressing-room, by one dis- 
mal candle, sat her woman, reading a book of 
sermons. She had a long pink face, had been her 
ladyship’s mother’s own attendant; and much 
Sir Jasper hated her. She rose bristling, dropped 
him a curtesy eloquent of a sense of his repro- 
bation; and he felt that with every line of the 
homily she laid by on his appearance she had 
just damned him as comfortably as he the butler. 
Oh, Lud, Lud! (thus she prayed Sir Jasper in 
a frightful whisper) would he in mercy walk 
softer? My lady was asleep. Her ladyship had 
been so unwell, so indisposed, that she, Megrim, 
had seen the moment when she must send for 
the apothecary, and have Sir Jasper looked for 
all over Bath. Sir Jasper did not seem to realise 
it, but my lady was of a delicate complexion: 
a tender flower! A harsh look from Sir Jasper, 
an unkind word, much less cruel treatment, and 
she would slip through his fingers. Ay, that she 
would. 

Sir Jasper cast a lowering suspicious look around. 
He glared at the woman, at the corners of the 
room, at the closed door. He felt his hot jealousy 


35 


The Bath Comedy 

sicken and turn green and yellow within him. 
He stretched out his hand towards the lock of 
his wife’s door; but Mistress Megrim came be- 
tween him and his purpose with determined 
movement, her stout bust creaking in its tight 
stays. 

"No,” said she, “no, Sir Jasper, unless it be 
across my dead corpse!” Here she trembled 
very much and grew red about the eyes and 
nose. 

“Pshaw !” said Sir Jasper, and walked away, 
down the stairs again and into the empty, lighted 
drawing-room. First he halted by the window, 
where Lady Standish had stood and smiled upon 
Lord Verney. Then he went to her writing- 
desk, and laid his hand upon the casket where 
she kept her correspondence, then withdrawing 
it with a murmured curse, turned to the chair 
where she sat, and lifted up her bag of silks. 
But this he tossed from him without drawing 
the strings. Another moment and his eye caught 
the gleam of the letter so artfully hidden and ex- 
posed by Mistress Bellairs. He picked it up and 
surveyed it ; it bore no address, was vaguely 
perfumed and fell temptingly open to his hand. 
He spread the sheet and saw the ruddy curl. 
Then his eyes read in spite of himself. And 


36 


The Bath Comedy 


as he read the blood rushed to his brain and 
turned him giddy, and he sank on the settee and 
tore at the ruffles at his neck. For a moment 
he suffocated. With recovered breath came a 
fury as voluptuous as a rapture. He brought 
the paper to the light and examined the love- 
lock. 

“Red !” said he, “red!” 

He thought of Lord Verney’s olive face, and 
looked and glared at the hair again as if he dis- 
believed his senses. Red! Were there two of 
them, a black and a ruddy? Stay; oh! women 
were sly devils ! Lord Verney was a blind. This, 
this carrot Judas was the consoler ! “There was 
a patch above the dimple at the corner of your 
lip. I dreamed I kissed it.” Sir Jasper gave 
a sort of roar in his soul, which issued from 
his lips in a broken groan. The dimple and the 
patch ! Ay, he had seen them ! Only a few short 
hours ago he had thought to kiss that dimple 
with a husband’s lordly pleasure. That dimple, 
set for another man! 

“Blast them ! blast them !” cried Sir Jasper and 
clenched his hands above his head. The world 
went round with him, and everything turned the 
colour of blood. The next instant he was cold 
again, chiding himself for his passion. He must 


The Bath Comedy 


37 


be calm, calm for his vengeance. This lock he 
must trace to its parent head, no later than to- 
night, if he had to scour the town. He sat down, 
stretched the fatal missive before him, and sat 
staring at it. 

It was thus that a visitor, who was announced 
as Captain Spicer, presently found him. Captain 
Spicer was an elongated young gentleman, with 
a tendency to strabism, attired in the extreme of 
fashion. He minced forward, bowing and wav- 
ing white hands with delicately crooked fingers. 
His respects he presented to Sir Jasper. He had 
not up to this had the pleasure and honour of 
Sir Jasper’s acquaintance, but was charmed of 
the opportunity — any opportunity which should 
afford him that pleasure and honour. Might he, 
might he ? He extended a snuff-box, charmingly 
enamelled, and quivered it towards his host. Sir 
Jasper had risen stiffly, in his dull eye there was 
no response. 

“You do not, then?” queried Captain Spicer, him- 
self extracting a pinch and inhaling it with su- 
perlative elegance and the very last turn of the 
wrist. “And right, my dear sir ! A vicious 
habit. Yet positively,” said he, and smiled en- 
gagingly, “without it, I vow, I could not exist 
from noon to midnight. But then it must be 


3 « 8 The Bath Comedy 

pure Macabaw. Anything short of pure Maca- 
baw, fie, fie!” 

Sir Jasper shook himself and interrupted with a 
snarl : 

“To what, sir, do I owe the honour ?” 

“I come,” said Captain Spicer, “of course you 
have guessed, from my Lord Verney. There was 
a trifle, I believe about — ha — the shape of his 
nether limbs. Upon so private a matter, sir, as 
his, ahem, nether limbs, a gentleman cannot 
brook reflection. You will comprehend that my 
Lord Verney felt hurt, Sir Jasper, hurt! I my- 
self, familiar as I am with his lordship, have 
never ventured to hint to him even the name of 
a hosier, though I know a genius in that line, sir, 
a fellow who has a gift — a divine inspiration I 
may say — in dealing with these intimate details ! 
But Gad, sir, delicacy, delicacy!” 

Sir Jasper, meanwhile, had lifted the letter from 
the table, and was advancing upon Captain 
Spicer, ponderingly looking from the lock of hair 
in his hand to that young gentleman’s head, 
which however was powdered to such a nicety 
that it was quite impossible to tell the colour be- 
neath. 

“Sir,” interrupted he at this juncture, “excuse 
me, but I should be glad to know if you wear 


The Bath Comedy 
your hair or a wig ?” 

Captain Spicer leaped a step back, and looked in 
amaze at the Baronet’s earnest countenance. 
“Egad !” thought he to himself, “Verney’s in the 
right of it, the fellow’s mad. Ha! ha!” said he 
aloud, “very good, Sir Jasper, very good. A lit- 
tle conundrum, eh? ’Rat me, I love a riddle.” 
He glanced towards the door. Sir Jasper still 
advanced upon him as he retreated. 

“I asked you, sir,” he demanded with an omin- 
ous rise in his voice, “if you wore your own 
hair?” (“The fellow looks frightened,” he ar- 
gued internally — “ ’tis monstrous suspicious.”) 
“I,” cried the Captain, with his back against the 
door fumbling for the handle as he stood. “Fie, 
fie, who wears a peruke now-a-days, unless it 
be your country cousin ? He, he ! How warm 
the night is !” 

Sir Jasper had halted opposite to him and was 
rolling a withering eye over his countenance. 
“His mealy face is so painted,” said the unhappy 
baronet to himself, “that devil take him if I can 
guess the colour of the fellow.” His hand 
dropped irresolute by his side. 

Beads of perspiration sprang on Captain Spicer’s 
forehead. 

“If I ever carry a challenge to a madman again !” 


40 


The Bath Comedy 


thought he. 

“Your hair is very well powdered,” said Sir Jas- 
per. 

“Oh, it is so, it is as you say — Poudre a la Mare- 
chale, sir,” said the Captain, while under his per- 
severing finger the door-handle slowly turned. An 
aperture yawned behind him ; in a twinkling his 
slim figure twisted, doubled, and was gone. 

“Hey, hey!” cried Jasper, “stop man, stop, our 
business together has but just begun.” 

But Captain Spicer had reached the street-door. 
“Look to your master,” said he to the footman, 
“he is ill, very ill !” 

Sir Jasper came ruuning after him into the hall. 
“Stop him, fools !” cried he to his servants, and 
then in the next breath, “Back !” he ordered. 
And to himself he murmured, ‘ “Tis never he. 
That sleek, fluttering idiot never grew so crisp 
a curl nor wrote so sturdy a hand, no, nor kis- 
sed a dimple ! Kissed a dimple! S’death !” 


Scene V. 

A S he stood turning the seething brew of his 
dark thoughts, there came a pair of know- 
ing raps upon the street-door, and in upon him 


The Bath Comedy 


4i 


strode with cheery step and cry the friends he 
was expecting. 

“Ah, Jasper, lad,” cried Tom Stafford, and struck 
him upon his shoulder, “lying in wait for us? 
Gad, you’re a blood-thirsty fellow !” 

“And quite right,” said Colonel Villiers, clink- 
ing spurred legs, and flinging off a military cloak. 
“Zounds, man, would you have him sit down in 
his dishonour?” 

Sir Jasper stretched a hand to each; and hold- 
ing him by the elbows they entered his private 
apartment and closed the door with such careful- 
ness that the tall footmen had no choice but to 
take it in turns to listen and peep through the 
key-hole. 

“Tom,” said Sir Jasper, “Colonel Villiers, when 
I begged you to favour me with this interview, 
I was anxious for your services because, as I 
told you, of a strong suspicion of Lady Stand- 
ish’s infidelity to me. Now, gentlemen, doubt is 
no longer possible, I have the proofs !” 

“Come, come, Jasper, never be down-hearted,” 
cried jovial Tom Stafford. “Come, sir, you have 
been too fond of the little dears in your day not 
to know what tender yielding creatures they 
are. Tis their nature, man; and then, must 
they not follow the mode? Do you want to be 


42 


The Bath Comedy 


the only husband in Bath whose wife is not in 
the fashion? Tut, tut, so long as you can meas- 
ure a sword for it and let a little blood, why, 
’tis all in the day’s fun !” 

“Swords?” gurgled Colonel Villiers. “No, no, 
pistols are the thing, boy. You are never sure 
with your sword : ’tis but a dig in the ribs, a 
slash in the arm, and your pretty fellow looks 
all the prettier for his pallor, and is all the more 
likely to get prompt consolation in the proper 
quarter. Ha !” 

“Consolation !” cried Sir Jasper, as if the word 
were a blow. “Ay, consolation ! damnation !” 
“Whereas with your bullet,” said the Colonel, “in 
the lungs, or in the brain — at your choice — the 
job is done as neat as can be. Are you a good 
hand at the barkers, Jasper?” 

“Oh, I can hit a haystack!” said Sir Jasper. But 
he spoke vaguely. 

“I am for the swords, whenever you can,” cried 
comely Stafford, crossing a pair of neat legs as 
he spoke and caressing one rounded calf with 
a loving hand. “ ’Tis a far more genteel weapon. 
Oh, for the feel of the blades, the pretty talk, 
as it were, of one with the other! ‘Ha, have I 
got you now, my friend?’ — ‘Ha, would you step 
between me and my wife? or my mistress? ot 


The Bath Comedy 43 

my pleasure ?’ — as the case may be. ‘Would you ? 
I will teach you, sa — sa !’ Now — now one in the 
ribs! One under that presuming heart! Let 
the red blood flow, see it drop from the steel: 
that is something like! Pistols, what of them l 
pooh ! Snap, you blow a pill into the air, and ’tis 
like enough you have to swallow it yourself! 
Tis for apothecaries, say I, and such as have 
not been brought up to the noble and gentlemanly 
art of self-defence.” 

“Silence, Tom,” growled the Colonel; here is no 
matter for jesting. This friend of ours has had a 
mortal affront, has he not? Tis established. 
Shall he not mortally avenge himself upon him 
who has robbed him of his honour? That is 
the case, is it not ? And, blast me, is not the pis- 
tol the deadlier weapon and therefore the most 
suited? Hey?” 

Sir Jasper made an inarticulate sound that might 
have passed for assent or dissent, or merely as 
an expression of excessive discomfort or feeling. 
“To business then,” cried Colonel Villiers. “Shall 
I wait upon Lord Verney and suggest pistols 
at seven o’clock to-morrow morning in Ham- 
mer’s Fields? That is where I generally like to 
place such affairs: snug enough to be out of 
disturbers’ way, and far enough to warm the 


44 


The Bath Comedy 


blood with a brisk walk. Gad, ’twas but ten days 
ago that I saw poor Ned Waring laid as neatly 
on his back by Lord Tipstaff e (him they call 
Tipsy Tip, you know) as ever it was done; as 
pretty sight! Six paces, egad, and Ned as de- 
termined a dog as a fellow could want to sec- 
ond. ‘Villiers,’ said he, as I handed him his saw- 
handle, ‘if I do not do for him, may he do for 
me ! One of us must kill the other/ said he. 
’Twas all about Mistress Waring, you know, 
dashed pretty woman ! Poor Ned, he made a dis- 
covery something like yours, eh? Faith! ha, ha! 
And devil take it, sir, Tip had him in the throat 
at the first shot, and Ned’s bullet took off Tip- 
staff e’s right curl ! Jove, it was a shave ! Ned 
never spoke again. Ah, leave it to me; see if 
I do not turn you out as rare a meeting.” 

“But stay,” cried Stafford, as Sir Jasper writhed 
in his arm-chair, clenched and unclenched furi- 
ous hands and felt the curl of red hair burn him 
where he had thrust it into his bosom. “Stay,” 
cried Stafford, “we are going too fast I think. 
Do I not understand from our friend here that 
he called Lord Verney a rat? Sir Jasper is there- 
fore himself the insulting party, and must wait 
for Lord Verney’s action in the matter.” 

“I protest,” cried the Colonel, “the first insult 


The Bath Comedy 45 

was Lord Verney ’s in compromising our friend’s 
wife.” 

“Pooh, pooh,” exclaimed Stafford, recrossing 
his legs to bring the left one into shapely promi- 
nence this time, “that is but the insult incidental. 
But to call a man a rat, that is the insult direct. 
Jasper is therefore the true challenger ; the other 
has the choice of arms. It is for Lord Verney to 
send to our friend!”’ 

“Sir!” exclaimed the Colonel, growing redder 
about the gills than Nature and port wine had al- 
ready made him. “Sir, would you know better 
than I?” 

“Gentlemen,” said Sir Jasper, sitting up sud- 
denly, “as I have just told you, since I craved 
of your kindness that you would help me in this 
matter, I have made discoveries that alter the 
complexion of the affair very materially. I have 
reason to believe that if Lord Verney be guilty 
in this matter it is in a very minor way. You 
know what they call in France un chandelier. In- 
deed it is my conviction — such is female artful- 
ness — that he has merely been made a puppet 
of to shield another person. It is this person 
I must find first, and upon him that my ven- 
geance must fall before I can attend to any 
other business. Lord Verney indeed has already 


4 6 


The Bath Comedy 


sent to me, but his friend, Captain Spicer, a 
poor fool (somewhat weak in the head I believe), 
left suddenly without our coming to any con- 
clusion. Indeed, I do not regret it — I do not seek 
to fight with Lord Verney now. Gentlemen/’ said 
Sir Jasper, rising and drawing the letter from his 
breast — “gentlemen, I shall neither eat nor sleep 
till I have found out the owner of this curl !° 

He shook out the letter as he spoke, and fiercely 
thrust the tell-tale love-token under the noses of 
his amazed friends. “It is a red-haired man, you 
see! There lives no red-haired man in Bath 
but him I must forthwith spit or plug lest the 
villain escape me !” 

Colonel Villiers started to his feet with a growl 
like that of a tiger aroused from slumber. 
“Zounds !”- he exclaimed. “An insult !” 

“How!” cried Jasper, turning upon him and 
suddenly noticing the sandy hue of his friend’s 
bushy eyebrows. “You, good God! You? Pooh, 
pooh, impossible, and yet. . . . Colonel Vil- 

liers, Sir!” cried Sir Jasper, in awful tones, “did 
you write this letter? Speak! Yes or no, man! 
Speak, or must I drag the words from your 
throat ?” 

Purple and apoplectic passion well-nigh stifled 
Colonel Villiers. 


47 


The Bath Comedy 

“Stafford, Stafford,” he spluttered, “you are wit- 
ness. These are gross affronts, affronts which 
shall be wiped out.” 

“Did you write that letter? Yes or no!” 
screamed Sir Jasper, shaking the offending docu- 
ment in the Colonel's convulsed countenance. 

“I ?” cried the Colonel, and struck away Sir Jas- 
per’s hand with a furious blow, “I ? I write such 
brimstone nonsense? No, sir! Now, damn you 
body and soul, Sir Jasper, how dare you ask me 
such a question?” 

“No,” said Sir Jasper, “of course not ! Ah, I am 
a fool, Villiers. Forgive me. There’s no quar- 
rel between us ! No, of course it could not be 
you ! With that nose, that waistcoat, your sixty 
years ! Gad, I am going mad !” 

“Why, man,” said Stafford, as soon as he. could 
speak for laughing, “Villiers has not so much 
hair on all his head as you hold in your hand 
there. Off with your wig, Villiers, off with 
your wig, and let your bald pate proclaim its 
shining innocence.” 

The gallant gentleman thus addressed was by this 
time black in the face. Panting as to breath, 
disjointed as to speech, his fury had neverthe- 
less its well-defined purpose. 

'“I have been insulted, I have been insulted,” 


48 


The Bath Comedy 


he gasped; “the matter cannot end here. Sir 
Jasper, you have insulted me. I am a red- 
haired man, sir. I shall send a friend to call 
upon you.” 

“Nay, then,” said Sir Jasper, “since ’tis so be- 
tween us I will even assure myself that Tom 
has spoken the truth and give you something 
to fight for!” He stretched out his hand as he 
spoke, and plucked the wig from Colonel Villiers’ 
head. 

Before him indeed spread so complete an ex- 
panse of hairless candour, that further evidence 
was not necessary; yet the few limp hairs that 
lingered behind the Colonel’s ears, if they had 
once been ruddy, shone now meekly silver in 
the candle-light. 

“I thank you,” said Sir Jasper, “that is sufficient. 
When you send your friend to call upon me, I 
shall receive him with pleasure.” He handed 
back the Colonel’s wig with a bow. 

The Colonel stood trembling, his knotted hand 
instinctively fumbled for his sword. But remem- 
bering perhaps that this was eminently a case 
for pistols, he bethought himself, seized his wig, 
clapped it on defiantly, settled it with minute 
care, glared, wheeled round and left the room, 
muttering as he went remarks of so sulphurous 


The Bath Comedy 


49 


a nature as to defy recording. 

Sir Jasper did not seem to give him another 
thought. He fell into his chair again and spread 
out upon his knee the sorely crumpled letter. 
“Confusion!” said he. “Who can it be? Tom, 
you scamp, I know your hair is brown. Thou 
art not the man, Tom. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom, if 
I do not kill him I shall go mad!” 

Stafford was weak with laughter, and tears 
rolled from his eyes as he gasped : 

“Let us see, who can the Judas be? (Gad, this 
is the best joke I have known for years. Oh, 
Lord, the bald head of him ! Oh, Jasper, ’tis cruel 
funny! Stap me, sir, if I have known a bet- 
ter laugh these ten years!) Nay, nay, I will 
help thee. Come, there’s His Lordship the 
Bishop of Bath and Wells, he is red, I know, 
for I have seen him in the water. Gad, he was 
like a boiled lobster, hair and all. Could it 
be he, think you? They have a way, these di- 
vines, and Lady Standish has a delicate con- 
science. She would like the approval of the 
Church upon her deeds. Nay, never glare like 
that, for I will not fight you! Have you not 
got your rosary of red polls to tell first. Ha! 
there is O’Hara, he is Irish enough and rake 
enough and red enough. Oh, he is red enough !” 


The Bath Comedy 


5 ° 

“O’Hara,” cried Sir Jasper, struck. 

There came a fine rat-tat-tat at the door, a parley 
in the hall, and the servant announced Mr. Denis 
O’Hara. 

“Talk of the devil,” said Stafford. 

Sir Jasper rose from his arm-chair with the air 
of one whose enemy is delivered into his hands. 


Scene VI. 



HE Honourable Denis O’Hara, son and 


1 heir of Viscount Kilcroney in the peerage 
of Ireland, entered with a swift and easy step, 
and saluted airily. He had a merry green eye, 
and the red of his crisp hair shone out through 
the powder like a winter sunset through a mist. 
“Sir Jasper,” said he, “your servant, sir. Faith, 
Tom, me boy, is that you? The top of the even- 
ing to ye.” 

Uninvited he took a chair and flung his careless 
figure upon it. His joints were loose, his nose 
aspired, his rich lace ruffles were torn, his hand- 
some coat was buttoned awry ; Irishman was 
stamped upon every line of him, from his hot red 
head to his slim alert foot; Irishman lurked in 
every rich accent of his ready tongue. 

Sir Jasper made no doubt that now the Lothario 
who had poached on his preserves, had destroyed 


The Bath Comedy 


5 1 


his peace, had devastated his home, was before 
him. He turned to Stafford and caught him by 
the wrist. 

“Tom,” whispered he, “you will stand by me, for 
by my immortal soul, I will fight it out to-night !” 
“For God’s sake, be quiet,” whispered the other, 
who began to think that the jealous husband was 
getting beyond a joke. “Let us hear what the 
fellow has got to say first. The devil! I will 
not stand by to see you pink every auburn buck 
in the town. ’Tis stark lunacy.” 

“But ’tis you yourself,” returned Sir Jasper, in 
his fierce undertone — “you yourself who told me 
it was he. See, but look at this curl and at that 
head.” 

“Oh, flummery!” cried Stafford. “Let him speak, 
I say.” 

“When you have done your little conversation, 
gentlemen,” said Mr. O’Hara good-naturedly, 
“perhaps you will let me put in a word edge- 
ways ?” 

Sir Jasper, under his friend’s compelling hand, 
sank into a chair; his sinews well-nigh creaked 
with the constrain he was putting upon himself. 
“I have come,” said Denis O’Hara, “from me 
friend Captain Spoicer. I met him a whoile ago, 
fluttering down Gay Street, leaping like a hare 


5 2 


The Bath Comedy 


with the hounds after him, by St. Patrick! 
‘You’re running away from someone, Spoicer/ 
says I. And says he, Tm running away from 
that blithering madman Sir Jasper Standish/ 
Excuse me, Sir Jasper, those were his words, ye 
see.” 

“And what, sir,” interrupted Sir Jasper in an 
ominous voice — “what, sir, may I ask, was your 
purpose in walking this way to-night?” 

“Eh,” cried the Irishman, “what is that ye say?” 
“Oh, go on, O’Hara,” cried Stafford impatiently, 
and under his breath to Standish, “Faith, Jasper,” 
said he, “keep your manners, or I’ll wash my 
hands of the whole matter.” 

“Oh, is that the way with him,” said O’Hara, 
behind his hand to Stafford, and winked jovially. 
“Well, I was saying, gentlemen, that to see a man 
run, unless it be a Frenchman, is a thing that 
goes against me. ‘Why, what did he do to you ?’ 
said I (meaning you, Sir Jasper). ‘Oh,’ says 
me gallant Captain, ‘I went to him with a gentle- 
manly message from a friend and the fellow in- 
sulted me so grossly with remarks about my hair, 
that sure, says he, ‘tis only fit for Bedlam he is/ 
‘Insulted you,’ says I, ‘and where are ye running 
to? To look for a friend, I hope,’ says I. ‘Insults 
are stinking things.’ ‘Sure/ says he, ‘he is mad/ 


53 


The Bath Comedy 

says he. ‘Well, what matter of that?’ says I. 
‘Sure, isn’t it all mad we are more or less? Come,’ 
says I, ‘Spoicer, this will look bad for you with 
the ladies, not to speak of the men. Give me the 
message, me boy, and I will take it ; and sure we 
will let Sir Jasper bring his keepers with him to 
the field, and no one can say fairer than that.’ ” 
Sir Jasper sprang to his feet. 

“Now, curse your Irish insolence/’ he roared ; 
“this is more than I would stand from any man ! 
And, if I mistake not, Mr. O’Hara, we have other 
scores to settle besides.” 

“Is it we?” cried O’Hara, jumping up likewise. 
“ ’Tis the first I’ve heard of them — but, be jabers, 
you will never find me behind hand in putting 
me foot to the front ! I will settle as many 
scores as you like, Sir Jasper — so long as it is 
me sword and not me purse that pays them.” 
“Draw then, man, draw !” snarled Sir Jasper, 
dancing in his fury. He bared his silver-hilted 
sword and threw the scabbard in the corner. 
“Heaven defend us !” cried Stafford, in vain en- 
deavouring to come between the two. 

“Sure, you must not contradict him,” cried 
O’Hara, unbuckling his belt rapidly, and drawing 
likewise with a pretty flourish of shining blade. 
“ ’.Tis the worst way in the world to deal with a 


54 


The Bath Comedy 


cracked man. Sure, ye must soothe him and give 
in to him. Don’t I know ! Is not me own first 
cousin a real raw lunatic in Kinsale Asylum this 
blessed day? Come on, Sir Jasper, I’m yer man. 
Just pull the chairs out of the way, Tom, me 
dear boy.” 

“Now sir, now sir !” said Sir Jasper, and felt re- 
stored to himself again as steel clinked against 
steel. And he gripped the ground with his feet, 
and knew the joy of action. 

“Well, what must be, must be,” said Stafford 
philosophically, and sat across a chair; “and a 
good fight is a good fight all the world over! 
Ha ! that was a lunge ! O’Hara wields a pretty 
blade, but there is danger in Jasper’s eye. I vow 
I won’t have the Irish boy killed. Ha !” He 
sprang to his feet again and brandished the 
chair, ready to interpose between the two at the 
critical moment. 

O’Hara was as buoyant as a cork ; he skipped 
backwards and forwards, from one side to an- 
other, in sheer enjoyment of the contest. But 
Sir Jasper hardly moved from his first position 
except for one or two vicious lunges. Stafford 
had deemed to see danger in his eye; there was 
more than danger — there was murder! The in- 
jured husband was determined to slay, and bided 


The Bath Comedy 55 

his time for the fatal thrust. The while, O’Hara 
attacked out of sheer lightness of heart. Now his 
blade grazed Sir Jasper’s thigh; once he gave 
him a flicking prick on the wrist, so that the blood 
ran down his fingers. 

“Stop, stop,” cried Stafford, running in with 
his chair, “Sir Jasper’s hit.” 

“No, dash you !” cried Sir Jasper. And click, 
clank, click, it went again, with the pant of 
the shortening breath, and the thud of the leap- 
ing feet. Sir Jasper lunged a third time, O’Hara 
waved his sword aimlessly, fell on one knee, and 
rolled over. 

“Halt!” yelled Stafford. It was too late. Sir 
Jasper stood staring at his red blade. 

“You have killed him!” cried Stafford, turning 
furiously on his friend, and was down on his 
knees and had caught the wounded man in his 
arms the next second. 

“Devil a bit,” said O’Hara, and wriggled in the 
other’s grasp, too vigorously indeed for a mori- 
bund, found his feet in a jiffy, and stood laughing 
with a white face and looking down at his drip- 
ping shirt. “ ’Tis but the sudden cold feel of 
the steel, man ! Sure I’m all right, and ready to 
begin again ! ’Tis but a rip in the ribs, for I can 
breathe as right as ever.” He puffed noisily as 


56 


The Bath Comedy 


he spoke to prove his words, clapped his chest, 
then turned giddily and fell into a chair. Staf- 
ford tore open the shirt. It was as O’Hara had 
said, the wound was an ugly surface rip, more 
unpleasant that dangerous. 

“Let us have another bout,” said O’Hara. 

“No, no,” said Stafford. 

“No, no,” said Sir Jasper, advancing and stand- 
ing before his adversary. “No, Mr. O’Hara, 
you may have done me the greatest injury that 
one can do another, but gad, sir, you have fought 
like a gentleman !” 

“Ah!” whispered O’Hara to Stafford, who still 
examined the wound with a knowing manner, 
“ ’tis crazed entoirely he is, the poor dear fellow.” 
“Not crazed,” said Stafford rising, “or if so, only 
through jealousy. — Jasper, let us have some wine 
for Mr. O’Hara, and one of your women with 
water and bandages. A little sticking-plaister 
will set this business to rights. Thank God, that 
I have not seen murder to-night !” 

“One moment, Stafford,” said Jasper, “one mo- 
ment, sir. Let us clear this matter. Am I not 
right, Mr. O’Hara, in believing you to have 
written a letter to my wife?” 

“Is it me?” cried O’Hara in the most guileless 
astonishment. 


57 


The Bath Comedy 

“He thinks you are her lover,” whispered Staf- 
ford in his ear. “Zooks, I can laugh again now ! 
He knows she has got a red-haired lover, and 
says he will kill every red-haired man in Bath !” 
“Sure I have never laid eyes on Lady Standish,” 
said O’Hara to Sir Jasper, “if that is all you want. 
Sure, I’d have been proud to be her lover if I’d 
only had the honour of her acquaintance!” 
“Mr. O’Hara,” said Sir Jasper, “will you shake 
hands with me?” 

“With all the pleasure in loife !” cried the genial 
Irishman. “Faith, ’tis great friends we will be, 
but perhaps ye had better not introjuce me to ye’r 
lady, for I’m not to be trusted where the dear 
creatures are concerned, and so ’tis best to tell 
you at the outset.” 

The opponents now shook hands with some feel- 
ing on either side. The wound was attended to 
and several bottles of wine were thereafter 
cracked in great good-fellowship. 

“There is nothing like Canary,” vowed O’Hara, 
“for the power of healing.” 

* * * * * * * 

It was past midnight when, on the arm of Mr. 
Stafford, Denis O’Hara set out to return to his 
own lodgings. 

The streets were empty and the night dark, and 


58 


The Bath Comedy 


they had many grave consultations at the street 
corners as to which way to pursue. If they 
reeled a little as they went, if they marched round 
King’s Circus, and round again more than once, 
and showed a disposition to traverse Gay Street 
from side to side oftener than was really re- 
quired by their itinerary, it was not, as O’Hara 
said, because of the Canary, but all in the way 
of “divarsion.” 

“Sir Jasper’s a jolly good fellow,” said Lord 
Kilcroney’s heir as he propped himself against 
his own door-post, and waggled the knocker with 
tipsy gravity. “And so are you,” said he to 
Stafford. “I like ye both.” Here he suddenly 
showed a disposition to fall upon Stafford’s neck, 
but as suddenly arrested himself, stiffened his 
swaying limbs and struck his forehead with a 
sudden flash of sobriety. “Thunder and ’ouns,” 
said he, “if I did not clean forget about Spoicer !” 
He was with difficulty restrained by Stafford 
(who, having a stronger head, was somewhat 
the soberer), with the help of the servants who 
now appeared, from setting forth to repair his 
negligence. By a tactful mixture of persuasion 
and force, the wounded gentleman was at length 
conducted to bed, sleepily murmuring: 

“Won’t do at all — most remiss — affair of honour 


The Bath Comedy 50 

— never put off !” until sleep overtook him, which 
was before his head touched the pillow. 
Meanwhile Sir Jasper sat, with guttering candles 
all around him, in the recesses of an armchair, 
his legs extended straight, his bandaged wrist 
stuffed into his bosom, his head sunk upon his 
chest, his spurious flash of gaiety now all lost 
in a depth of chaotic gloom. Dawn found him 
thus. At its first cold rays he rose sobered, and 
could not have said whether the night had passed 
in waking anguish or in hideous nightmare. He 
looked round on the cheerless scene, the blood- 
stained linen, the empty wine-glasses with their 
sickening reek, the smoking candles, the dis- 
ordered room ; then he shuddered and sought the 
haven of his dressing-room, and the relief of an 
hour’s sleep with a wet towel tied round his 
throbbing head. 


Scene VII. 

M ISTRESS BELLAIRS was up betimes. 

In truth she had slept ill, which was a 
strange experience for her. What her thirty- 
seven lovers had never had the power to wring 
from her — a tear and a sleepless night — this had 


6o 


The Bath Comedy 


she given to the one man who loved her not. 

She was tortured with anxiety concerning the 
danger which her caprice (or, as she put it, Lady 
Standish’s inconceivable foolishness) might have 
brought upon Lord Verney. At daybreak she 
rang for her maid, and with the eight o’clock 
chocolate demanded to be posted with all the news 
of the town. She was of those who possess the 
taleht of making themselves served. The choco- 
late was to the full as perfumed and creamy as 
ever, and Miss Lydia was bursting with tidings 
of importance, as she stood by her lady’s couch. 
“Well, Lydia, well?” cried her mistress, sharply. 
“Oh, lud, ma’am, the whole town’s ringing with 
it ! My Lady Standish has been found out. 
There, I for one never trust those solemn prudes 
that ever keep their eyes turned up or cast down, 
and their mouths pursed like cherries. You would 
not be so proper if there was not a reason for it, 
I always think.” 

“Lydia,” said Mistress Bellairs, “do not be a 
fool. Go on ; what has Lady Standish been found 
out in, pray?” 

“Oh, ma’am,” said Lydia, “it ain’t hard to guess. 
’Tis what a woman’s always found out in, I 
suppose. But, lud, the shamelessness of it. I 
hear, ma’am,” she came closer to her mistress 


6 1 


The Bath Comedy 

and bent to whisper, almost trembling with the 
joy of being tale-bearer to such purpose, “I hear 
Sir Jasper found Colonel Villiers there yester- 
day afternoon. Oh, ma’am, such goings on !” 
“Pshaw !” said Mistress Kitty. 

“Well, they’re going to fight, anyhow,” cried the 
girl, “and Sir Jasper tore off the Colonel’s wig and 
beat him about the face with it, ma’am, and the 
Colonel’s been like a madman ever since, and 
he vows he will shoot him this morning.” 
Mistress Bellairs gave a sigh of relief. 

“Let them shoot each other,” said she, sinking 
back on her pillows and stirring her chocolate 
calmly. “I do not find the world any better for 
either of them.” 

“But that is not all, ma’am, for poor Sir Jasper 
no sooner had he thrashed the Colonel, than he 
finds Mr. Denis O’Hara behind the curtains.” 
“Denis O’Hara!” exclaimed Mistress Bellairs, 
sitting up in amaze. “You’re raving !” 

“No, ma’am, for I have it from Mr. O’Hara’s 
own man ; and did not he and Sir Jasper fight it 
out then and there, and was not Mr. O’Hara car- 
ried home wounded by the Watch !” 

“Mercy on us !” exclaimed the lady. 

“And that is not all, ma’am,” said the maid. 

“You frighten me, child.” 


6 2 


The Bath Comedy 


“There is Captain Spicer, too, whom you can’t 
a-bear, and Lord Verney.” 

“Lord Verney!” cried Mistress Kitty. 

“Ay, ma’am; he and Sir Jasper are going to 
fight this morning. Sir Jasper’s going to fight 
them all, but Lord Verney is to be the first, for 
Sir Jasper found him kissing Lady Standish yes- 
terday at noon ; the others were later on. So it’s 
my Lord comes first you see, ma’am.” 

“La, girl,” cried Mistress Bellairs with a scream, 
and upset her chocolate, “going to fight this 
morning? ’Tis not true !” Her pretty face turned 
as white as chalk under its lace frills. 

“Yes, ma’am,” pursued the maid, gabbling as 
hard as she could. “Yes, ma’am, first there’s 
Lord Verney. Sir Jasper, they say, behaved so 
oddly to Captain Spicer who brought the first 
challenge, that Lord Verney sent another by a 
chairman this morning. And then Colonel Vil- 
liers. Of course, as Mr. Mahoney says (that’s 
Mr. O’Hara’s man, ma’am), Sir Jasper is safe 
to kill Lord Verney, and Colonel Villiers is safe 
to kill Sir Jasper. But if the Colonel do not kill 
Sir Jasper, then Sir Jasper will fight Captain 
Spicer! La! ma’am, the chocolate’s all over the 
bed.” 

“Oh, get out of that, you silly wench,” cried Mis- 


The Bath Comedy 63 

tress Bellairs, “let me rise ! There is not a mo- 
ment to lose. And where is Sir Jasper supposed 
to fight my Lord Verney? (Give me my silk 
stockings, useless thing that you are!) I don’t 
believe a word of your story. How dare you 
come and tell me such a pack of nonsense? But 
where are they supposed to fight? Of course 
you must have heard the hour?” She was pull- 
ing silk stockings over her little arched foot, and 
up her little plump leg as fast as her trembling 
hands would obey her. 

“I do not know where, ma’am,” said the maid 
demurely, “but the Colonel is to meet Sir Jasper 
in Hammer’s Fields at noon, so I suppose my 
Lord Verney and he will be fighting about this 
time.” 

“Oh, hold your tongue,” cried her mistress; 
“you’re enough to drive one mad with your 
quacking !” 

Not a dab of rouge did the widow find time to 
spread upon pale cheeks, not a dust of powder 
upon a black curl. The pretty morning hood 
was drawn round a very different face from that 
which it usually shaded ; but who shall say that 
Kitty, the woman, running breathless through the 
empty streets with the early breeze playing with 
her loose hair, was not as fair in her complete self- 


6 4 


The Bath Comedy- 


abandonment, as the fashionable lady, powdered, 
painted, patched and laced, known under the 
name of Mistress Bellairs ? Her small feet ham- 
mered impatiently along, her skirts fluttered as 
she went. She would not wait for a coach; a 
chair would have sent her crazy. 

At the turning of the Crescent, another fluttering 
woman’s figure, also hooded, also cloaked, also 
advancing with the haste that despises appear- 
ances, passed her with a patter and a flash. They 
crossed, then moved by the same impulse, halted 
with dawning recognition. 

“Mistress Bellairs !” cried Lady Standish’s flute- 
like voice. 

“Julia Standish!” screamed Mistress Bellairs. 
They turned and caught at each other with cling- 
ing hands. 

“Oh, heavens,” said Mistress Bellairs, “is what I 
hear true? Is that devil Sir Jasper going to fight 
Lord Verney this morning? Why, Verney’s but 
a child; ’tis rank murder. You wicked woman, 
see what you have done!” 

“Ah, Mistress Bellairs,” cried Julia, and pressed 
her side, “my heart is broken.” 

“But what has happened, woman, what has hap- 
pened?” cried Kitty, and shook the plaintive Julia 
with a fierce hand. 


65 


The Bath Comedy 

“Sir Jasper will not see me,” sobbed Julia, “but 
I have found out that he is to meet my Lord Ver- 
ney in an hour in Bathwick Meadows. There 
have been messages going backwards and for- 
wards since early dawn. Oh, Heaven, have pity 
on us!” 

“Where are you going?” cried Kitty, and shook 
her once more. 

“I was going to Lord Verney to plead for my 
husband’s life,” said Lady Standish, and the tears 
streamed down her face like the storm-rain upon 
lily flowers. 

“The Lord keep you,” cried Mistress Bellairs 
with feelings too deep for anger; “I believe you 
are no better than an idiot !” 

The most heroic resolves are often the work of a 
second ! “Now go back home again, you silly 
thing,” said Kitty. “ ’Tis I — yes, Lady Standish, 
you do not deserve it of me — but I will sacrifice 
myself ! I will prevent this duel, I will go to my 
Lord Verney!” 

“You,” said Julia, and wondered, and but half 
understood the meaning of the words. 

“Go home, go home,” said Mistress Kitty, “and 
I tell you that if I do not make Lord Verney fail 
at the meeting, my name is not Kitty Bellairs!” 
Lady Standish hesitated, and meekly bowed her 


66 


The Bath Comedy 


head, turned and began to retrace her steps, her 
slim figure bending and swaying as if the fresh 
morning wind were too stern for her. 

Mistress Bellairs looked at her watch. 

“Did she say an hour?” murmured she to her- 
self. “Then, ten minutes before the looking- 
glass and ten minutes to get to my Lord’s lodg- 
ings, and I will find him about to start. Tis his 
first affair of honour, poor boy, and he is sure 
to be as early at it as a country cousin to a dinner- 
party.” 

The sun broke out from a cloudy sky, and Mis- 
tress Bellairs shook herself and felt her spirits 
rise. A dimple peeped in either cheek. 

“After all,” said she as she trippel along, and the 
dimples deepened as the smile broadened, “who 
knows? ’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good.” 

:jc sje :js >K Hs 

My Lady Standish returned home. The ser- 
vants stared at her curiously as she crossed the 
hall. Mistress Tremlet, the housekeeper, passed 
her with pursed lips. Her own maid, she knew, 
was dissolved in tears and plunged in Doctor 
Persel’s discourses against heresy. White as new 
fallen snow was her conscience, nevertheless she 
felt herself smirched in the eyes of all these peo- 
ple. Yet she cared not. 


The Bath Comedy 


67 


Outside Sir Jasper’s dressing-room she listened. 
She could hear him stamp about as he made his 
toilet, and curse his man. She put out her hand 
to knock, but the memory of his stern repulse 
to her last appeal robbed her of all courage. 

“I will not go in upon him,” thought she, “but 
when he comes out I will speak.” 

“These swords,” said Sir Jasper within, “I will 
take in the carriage. I expect Mr. Stafford and 
a friend to call for me in half an hour. Do you 
understand, sirrah ! And hark ye, where are the 
pistols ?” 

“Pistols !” echoed Lady Standish, and her heart 
beat to suffocation. 

There was a pause. 

“Here, Sir Jasper,” said the valet then. 

“Now, mark what I say,” said Sir Jasper impres- 
sively. “Lord Markham will call at eleven. Let 
the curricle be in waiting ; tell my Lord that I will 
meet him five minutes before the half-hour at 
Hammer’s Fields. Forget at your peril! You 
are to take these pistols there yourself. Stay, 
tell my Lord Markham that if I am not at the 
rendezvous, ’twill only be because I have not life 
enough left to take me there, and he must make 
it straight with Colonel Villiers. Have you un- 
derstood, rascal? Nay — damn you! — I will give 


68 


The Bath Comedy 


you a letter for my Lord Markham.” 

“Oh God! oh God!” cried poor Lady Standish, 
and felt her knees tremble, “what is this now? 
Another meeting ! The Colonel ! ... In 

God’s name how comes he upon Colonel Villiers? 
Why, this is wholesale slaughter! This is in- 
sanity! This must be prevented!” She caught 
her head in her hands. “Sir Jasper’s mad,” she 
said. “What shall I do ? What shall I do ? They 
will kill him, and I shall have done it. Why now, 
if Kitty prevents the first duel, cannot I prevent 
the second? Oh, I am a false wife if I cannot 
save my husband. Heaven direct me !” she 
prayed, and to her prayer came inspiration. 
There was the Bishop, the Bishop of Bath and 
Wells! That reverend prelate had shown her 
much kindness and attention; he would know 
how to interfere in such a crisis. He was a man 
of authority. Between them could they not force 
the peace at Hammer’s Fields, and could not Sir 
Jasper be saved in spite of himself, were it by 
delivering him into the hands of the law ? 

Lady Standish flew into her room and called the 
sniffing Megrim. 

“Paper and ink,” cried she, “and get you ready to 
run on a message. ’Tis a matter of life and 
death.” 


6 9 


The Bath Comedy 

“My Lady,” said Megrim primly, “I will serve 
your Ladyship in all things that are right ; but I 
hope I know my dooty to my Creator ; and stoop 
to connive at irregularities, my Lady, I won’t and 
never will.” She had been ready to condemn 
her master overnight, but the talk in the servants’ 
hall had, as she expressed it, “opened her eyes.” 
And what woman is not ready to judge her sister 
woman — above all, what maid to condemn her 
mistress ? 

Lady Standish stared. 

“What means this?” said she. “You shall do as 
I bid you, Mistress Megrim. How dare you!” 
cried Lady Standish with a sudden flash of com- 
prehension. “Why, woman, my letter is to the 
Bishop !” 

“Oh,” quoth Mistress Megrim, still with reserve 
yet condescending to approval, “that is another 
matter ! Shall I,” she sniffed, “be stricter than 
becomes a Christian? Shall I refuse aid to the 
bruised sinner or to the smoking lamp whose con- 
science is awakened? May his Lordship be a 
tower of strength to your Ladyship along the 
rocky paths of penitence — Amen !” 


7 ° 


The Bath Comedy 
Scene VIII. 


I N ten minutes a fair lady may do much to 
enhance her fairness. As Mistress Bellairs 
took a last look look at her mirror, while Lydia 
bustled out to call a hired chair, she bestowed 
upon her reflection a smile of approval which 
indeed so charming an image could not fail to 
call forth. Then she huddled herself in a mys- 
terious and all enveloping cloak, caught up a 
little velvet mask from the table, and sped upon 
her errand. She sallied forth as the gallant 
soldier might to battle, with a beating heart yet 
a high one. 

Lord Verney and Captain Spicer had just finished 
breakfast at the former’s lodgings in Pierrepoint 
Street, near North Parade. Captain Spicer, bab- 
bling ineptly of his own experience as a duel- 
list, of his scorn of Sir Jasper’s lunacy, yet of his 
full determination to slay the vile madman, had 
done ample justice to his young principal’s table. 
But Lord Verney, his cheek now darkly flushed, 
now spread with an unwholesome pallor, found 
it hard to swallow even a mouthful of bread, 
and restlessly passed from the contemplation of 
the clock and the setting of his watch to the 
handling of his pistols, or the hasty addition 


The Bath Comedy 71 

of yet another postscript to the ill-spelt, blotted 
farewell epistle he had spent half the night in 
inditing to the Dowager his mother: “In case, 
you know . . . ” he had said to his friend, 

with a quiver in his voice. 

Captain Spicer had earnestly promised to carry 
out his patron’s last wishes in the most scru- 
pulous manner. 

“My dear Lord,” he had said, grasping him by 
the hand, “rely upon me. Gad, Sir Jasper is a 
devil of a shot I hear, and of course, he, he! we 
all know the saying — the strength of a madman. 
But no sooner has he laid you, Harry, than I 
vow, upon my honour, I shall hold him at my 
sword’s point. I will revenge thee, Harry, 
never fear of that. ’Twill be a mighty genteel 
story, and the world will ring with it. Egad, he 
will not be the first I have spitted as easy as your 
cook would spit a turkey. Have I not learnt of 
the great Angelo Malevolti himself? He, he — 
‘A woman’s hand,’ he would say, ‘and the dev- 
il’s head !’ ” 

Here Captain Spicer shook out his bony fingers 
from the encumbering ruffles and contemplated 
them with much satisfaction. 

“Oh, hang you, Spicer, be quiet, can’t you!” 
cried Lord Verney petulantly. 


72 


The Bath Comedy 


The Captain leant back on his chair and began to 
pick his teeth with a silver tooth-pick. 

“Pooh, these novices !” said he, as if to himself. 
“Keep your nerves steady, my Lord, or, stab 
me, I may as well order the mourning-coach 
before we start. He, he ! Tis well, indeed, 
you have a friend to stand by you !” 

A discreet tap was heard at the door, and Lord 
Verney’s impassive new servant (especially en- 
gaged on his behalf by the Captain, who indeed, 
some ill-natured wag had it, shared his wages 
and perquisites) stood in the doorway. 

“There is a lady downstairs, my Lord,” he said 
in his mechanical voice. “She particularly re- 
quests to see your Lordship and will take no 
denial, although I informed her that your Lord- 
ship was like to be engaged until late in the morn- 
ing.” 

Lord Verney merely stared in amazement; but 
Captain Spicer sprang up from his chair, his 
pale eyes starting with curiosity. 

“A lady, gad! Verney, you dog, what is this? 
A lady, Ned? Stay, is she tall and fair and 
slight?” 

“No, sir, she is under-sized, and seems plump, 
though she is wrapped in so great a cloak I 
could hardly tell.” 


The Bath Comedy 


73 


“‘Pretty, man?” 

“Cannot say, sir, she wears a mask.” 

“A mask? He, Verney, Verney, this is vastly 
interesting! And she won’t go away, eh, Ned?” 
“No, sir, she must see his Lordship, she said, if 
only for five minutes.” 

“Plump, under-sized, masked,” ejaculated Cap- 
tain Spicer in burning perplexity. “Gad, we 
have ten minutes yet, we will have her up, eh, 
Verney? Show her up, Ned.” 

The servant withdrew, unheeding Lord Verney ’s 
stammered protest. 

“Really, Captain Spicer,” said he, “I would have 
liked to have kept these last ten minutes for 
something serious. I would have liked,” said 
the lad with a catch in his voice and a hot colour 
on his cheek, “to have read a page of my Bible 
before starting, were it only for my mother’s 
sake, afterwards.” 

The led Captain threw up hand and eye in un- 
feigned horror. 

“A page of your Bible ! Zounds ! If it gets out, 
we are the laughing-stock of Bath. A page of 
your Bible ! ’Tis well no one heard you but I.” 
“Hush!” said Lord Verney, for in the doorway 
stood their visitor. ’Twas indeed a little figure, 
wrapped in a great cloak, and except for the 


74 


The Bath Comedy 


white hand that held the folds, and the glimpse 
of round chin and cherry lip that was trembling 
beneath the curve of the mask, there was naught 
else to betray her identity, to tell whether she 
were young or old, well-favoured or disinherited. 
But it was a charming little hand, and an en- 
gaging little chin. 

Lord Verney merely stood and stared like the boy 
he was. But Captain Spicer leaped forward with 
a spring like a grasshopper, and crossing his 
lean shanks, he presented a chair with the killing 
grace of which he alone was master. The lady 
entered the room, put her hand on the back of 
the chair, and turned upon Captain Spicer. 

“I would see Lord Verney alone, sir,” she said. 
It was a very sweet voice, but it was imperious. 
The masked lady had all the air of one who 
was accustomed to instant obedience. 

In vain Captain Spicer leered and languished ; 
the black eyes gleamed from behind the dis- 
guise very coldly and steadily back at him. 
Forced to withdraw, he endeavoured to do so 
with wit and elegance, but he was conscious 
somehow of cutting rather a poor figure; and 
under the unknown one’s hand the door closed 
upon him with so much energy as to frustrate ut- 
terly his last bow. 


75 


The Bath Comedy 

Kitty Bellairs deliberately turned the key in the 
lock, and put it in her pocket. Lord Verney 
started forward, but was arrested by the sound 
of his own name, pronounced in the most dulcet 
and plaintive tone he thought he had ever heard. 
“Lord Verney,” said Kitty, flinging back her 
cloak and hood and allowing her pretty brown 
curls, and a hint of the most perfect shape in 
Bath, to become visible to the young peer’s 
bewildered gaze. “Lord Verney,” said she, and 
clasped her hands, “a very, very unhappy woman 
has come to throw herself upon your compas- 
sion.” 

“Madam,” said Lord Verney, “what can I do for 
you?” His boyish soul was thrilled by these 
gentle accents of grief; he thought he saw a 
tear running down the white chin ; the rounded 
bosom heaved beneath its bewitching disorder of 
lace. He glanced at the clock and back at the 
suppliant in a cruel perplexity. “Madam,” said 
he, “time presses ; I have but a few minutes 
to give you. Tell me, madam, how I can 
serve you? To do so will be a comfort to me 
in what is perhaps the last hour of my life.” 

The lady gave a cry as soft as a dove’s, and as 
plaintive. 

“Oh,” said she, “it is true, then, what I heard?” 


?6 


The Bath Comedy 


and the white hands were wrung together as in 
extremest anguish. 

“Madam,” cried he, with outspread arms, and, 
though without daring to touch her, drawing 
closer, so close as to hear the quick catch of her 
breath and to inhale the subtle fragrance of vio- 
lets that emanated from her. 

“Oh,” said she, “it is true!” She staggered and 
caught at the fastenings of her cloak and threw 
it open. 

“You are faint,” he cried, strangely moved; “let 
me call.” 

But she caught him by the hand. Her fingers 
were curiously warm for one seized with faint- 
ness, but the touch of them was pleasant to the 
young man as never woman’s touch had been 
before. Out flew the fellow hand to keep his 
prisoner, and they clung round his great boy’s 
wrist. 

He never knew how, but suddenly he was on his 
knees before her. 

“You are going to fight,” said she, “to fight with 
Sir Jasper. Oh, my God, you do not know, but 
it is because of me, and if you fight it will break 
my heart.” She leant forward to look eagerly 
at him as he knelt. Her breath fanned his cheek. 
Through her mask he saw beautiful black eyes, 


The Bath Comedy 77 

deep, deep. How white the skin was upon her 
neck and chin — how fine its grain! What lit- 
tle wanton curls upon her head! What a frag- 
grance of flowers in the air ! How he longed to 
pluck that mask away — and yet how the very 
mystery lured him, held him ! 

“Who are you ?” said he, in a low quick whisper. 
“Let me see your face.” 

She forbade his indiscreet hand with a little 
shriek. 

“No, no, no, you must never see, never know; 
that would be terrible.” 

Then he placed both his hands, all unconsciously, 
upon hers, and then she caught them both and 
held them, and he felt that her weak grasp was 
to him as strong as iron. 

“Why do you fight?” said she. “Tell me.” 

He blushed. 

“ ’Tis for nothing, the merest misunderstand- 
ing. Sir Jasper is mad, I think.” 

“Sir Jasper is jealous,” breathed she, and nearer 
came the gaze of the eyes. “It is true that you 
love Lady Standish?” 

“I ?” cried he vehemently, and rapped out a great 
oath — so eager was he to deny. “I ? No ! God is 
my witness. No !” 

“Then do not fight,” said she. 


78 


The Bath Comedy 


He wanted to look at the clock ; he wanted to 
spring up and rush to the door; he was con- 
scious that Spicer was knocking gently, and that 
it was time to go where the conventions of 
honour called him. The soft clasp held him, and 
the mysterious eyes. He was a very boy, and 
had never loved before, and — she was masked ! 
“Let me advise you,” said she. “Believe me, 
your welfare is dearer to me than you can imag- 
ine — dearer to me than I ought to tell you. Be- 
lieve me, if you give up this duel you will live to 
be glad of it. Sir Jasper will thank you no later 
than this very day, as never man thanked man 
before. And you will make me so happy ! Oh, 
believe me, your honor is safe with me.” 

“Only let me see your face,” said he, while 
Spicer knocked louder. “I will see her, and kiss 
her,” he thought to himself, “and that will be 
something to carry to my death.” 

“How dare you ask it?” she said. “Must I grant 
your request when you refused mine?” 

’“And if I grant you yours,” said he, as his heart 
beat very fast, “what will you give me?” 

■“Oh, give,” said she, “give! Who cares for 
gifts? A man must take.” Her red lip be- 
neath the mask here became arched so bewitch- 
ingly over a row of the whitest teeth in all the 


The Bath Comedy 


79 


■world, that Harry Verney, whose head had been 
rapidly going, lost it and his heart together. 

“That is a challenge/’ said he, drew a hand 
away and lifted it to the mask. 

“Ah, traitor !” she cried, and made a dainty start 
of resistance. His fingers trembled on the soft 
scented locks. 

“You shall not,” said she, and bent her head 
to avoid his touch, so that as he knelt their 
faces were closer together than ever. 

“Oh !” cried he, and kissed her on the chin 
beneath the mask. 


Scene IX. 

M Y Lord!” clamoured Captain Spicer at the 
door, “the coach is waiting and we have 
but half-an-hour to reach Bathwick Meadows. 
Egad, Lord Verney, would you be last at the 
meeting?” 

Lord Verney sprang to his feet. The words, the 
impatient raps penetrated to his dizzy brain with 
sudden conviction. 

“Heavens!” cried he, and glanced at the clock, 
and made a leap for the door. 

“And will you go,” said the stranger, “without 


8o 


The Bath Comedy 


having seen my face?” 

He ran back to her and then back to the door 
again, distracted, as you may see a puppy dog 
between two calls. Finally he came back to 
the lady with a new and manly dignity upon 
him. 

“I must go,” he said. “Would you show your- 
self as kind as you seem, madam, remove your 
mask that I may see you before I go?” 

Outside Captain Spicer was dancing a sort of 
hornpipe of impotent impatience, and filling the 
air with shrill strange oaths. 

Mistress Bellairs put the lean swarthy boy very 
composedly on one side by the merest touch of 
her hand, then she went over to the door, un- 
locked it and admitted Captain Spicer, green 
and sweating. 

“I am coming, Spicer,” cried Lord Verney des- 
perately, and made a plunge for his hat and 
cloak, murmuring as he passed the lady: “Oh 
cruel !” 

Kitty Bellairs nibbled her little finger and looked 
at the clock. 

“It will not take you, you know,” said she, “more 
than five minutes to drive down to the Bathwick 
ferry, therefore if you start in three you will 
still have twenty-six to spare. My Lord Verney, 


8 1 


The Bath Comedy 

will you give me those three minutes?” 

Lord Verney flung aside hat and cloak again, his 
face glowing with a dark flush. 

“Oh,” cried he, like a school-boy, “for God’s 
sake, Spicer, wait outside.” 

“Nay,” said Mistress Kitty, smiling to herself 
under her mask, “nay, I have need of Captain 
Spicer.” 

Lord Verney ’s face fell. 

“Come hither,” said she, and took him crest- 
fallen by the hand and brought him to the table, 
where lay the writing materials he had been us- 
ing but a little while ago. “Here,” said she, 
“is a sheet of paper. Sit down, my Lord, and 
write, write,” she said, and tapped his shoulder; 
“write, sir — thus : — 

1 Lord Verney begs to inform Sir Jasper Standish that 
he understands the grounds of the quarrel between them 
to lie in a gross misconception of Lord Verney ’s feelings 
for Lady Standish.’ 

“Write, write !” She leaned over him, dictating. 
Half spell-bound, yet protesting incoherently, he 
began to cover the page with his awkward scrawl. 
“Quick,” said she. “(Child, how do you spell 
quarrel?) Never mind, on with you: — 


The Bath Comedy 


82 


4 Lord Verney begs to assure Sir Jasper that, so far from 
presuming to entertain any unlawful sentiments for Lady 
Standish, he has never addressed more than three words 
to her or as many glances at her in his life ; that his 
whole heart is given to another lady, the only woman he 
has ever loved and ever will love.* ” 

The pen nearly dropped from Lord Verney’s 
fingers. He started and turned round on his 
chair to gaze in rapture into the countenance 
of his mysterious visitor, and again was at once 
attracted and foiled by her mask. 

“Surely you would not contradict a lady?” she 
whispered in his ear; ‘“haste, we have but one 
minute more. Here, give me the pen, I will 
finish.” She snapped the quill from his hand, 
her curls touched his cheek as she bent forward 
over him to the page. Swiftly her little hand 
flew : — 


44 If upon this explanation Sir Jasper does not see his way 
to retract all the offensive observations he made to Lord 
Verney, Lord Verney will be ready to meet him as 
arranged without an instant’s delay. The truth of al 
these statements is guaranteed by the woman Lord 
Verney loves.” 


She seized the sheet and folded it. 

“Now, Captain Spicer,” said she, “take your 


»3 


The Bath Comedy 

coach and hie you to Sir Jasper’s house, and if 
you bring back an answer before the clock 
strikes, I will let you take off my mask, and that 
will save you from dying of curiosity and, also, 
give you something to tattle about for the next 
month. Oh, you will find Sir Jasper,” she said ; 
'‘he is a seasoned hand, and does not, like your 
virgin duellist, make it a point of honour to 
bring his high valour to the rendezvous twenty 
minutes before the time.” 

Within his meagre body Captain Spicer carried 
the soul of a flunkey. He would have given 
worlds to rebel, but could not. 

"So long as it is not a put-off,” said he. “Not 
even for a fair one’s smile could I barter a 
friend’s honour.” 

Kitty held the letter aloft tantalizingly and 
looked at the clock. 

“If you won’t be the bearer,” said she, “I will 
r.end it by the chairman, and then you will never 
know what is in it. Moreover,” said she, and 
smiled archly, “if Sir Jasper apologises to Lord 
Verney, which, upon receipt of this letter, I make 
no doubt he will, you can take his place, you 
know, and will not be done out of a gallant 
meeting.” 

"Of course, ha, of course!” cried Spicer with 


The Bath Comedy 


a yellow smile. 

Laughing, Mistress Kitty closed the door be- 
hind his retreating figure. 

“Now,” said she. 

“Oh, what have you done, what have you made 
me do?” cried Harry Verney in a sudden agony. 
“Hush,” said Mistress Kitty. “Did I not tell 
you your honour was safe with me? Do you 
not believe me?” said she meltingly. “Ah, Ver- 
ney!” She put her hand to her head, and at 
her touch the mask fell. 

He looked at her face, blushing and quivering 

upon him, and once more fell on his knee at 
her feet. 

“Oh, tell me your name !” cried he, pleadingly. 
“Why, Lord Verney,” she said, “how ungallant H 
She smiled and looked bewitchingly beautiful ; 
looked serious and reproachful, and he fell be- 
yond his depths in rapture. 

“Why, you know me, you know me well,” said 
she, “am I not Mistress Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs — 
am I not Kitty?” 

“No, no,” cried he, “I never knew you till this 
hour, madam, Mistress Bellairs, Kitty ! I see 
you,” he cried, “for the first time! Oh, God„ 
be kind to me, for I love her !” 

“And yet,” she whispered archly, “they say that 


85 


The Bath Comedy 

love is blind.” 

Upon this he kissed her as he had kissed her 
beneath the mask; and if anything could have 
been sweeter than the first kiss it was the sec- 
ond. 

Ah, love, how easy an art to learn, how hard to 
unlearn ! 

While Harry Verney thus forgot the whole 
world, his first duel, and the code of honour. Sir 
Jasper sat inditing an answer to his communica- 
tion : — 

“Sir Jasper Standish has received my Lord Verney’ 
explanation in the spirit in which it is offered. He is 
quite ready to acknowledge that he has acted entirely 
under a misapprehension, and begs Lord Verney to 
receive his unreserved apologies and the expression of his 
admiration for Lord Verney ’s gallant and gentlemanly 
behavior, together with his congratulations to him and 
the unknown lady upon their enviable situation.” 

Captain Spicer did not offer to supply his princi- 
pal’s place in the field. Indeed, he displayed to 
Sir Jasper, who received him with the most 
gloomy courtesy, the extreme suppleness of his 
spine, and pressed his unrivalled snuff upon 
him with a fluttering and ingratiating air. 

When he returned to Pierrepoint Street he found 
the mysterious stranger already in her sedan, 


86 


The Bath Comedy 


LordVerney leaning through the window thereof,, 
engaged in an earnest whispering conversation. 
Captain Spicer jocularly pulled him back by the 
coat-tails and inserted his own foolish face in- 
stead. The lady was masked and cloaked as 
he had left her. 

“Madam, I have done your errand,” said he. 
“It was,” said he, “a matter of difficult negoti- 
ation, requiring — ahem — requiring such tact as 
I think I may well call my own. Sir Jasper was 
vastly incensed, one might as well have tried to 
reason with a bull. ‘But gad, sir,’ said I, ‘would 
I, I, Captain Spicer, come with this message if 
it were not in accordance with the strictest rule 
of honourable etiquette?’ That floored him, 
madam ” 

Here Mistress Kitty snapped the letter flickering 
in his gesticulating hand with scant ceremony, 
turned her shoulder upon him, read it and handed 
it out to Lord Verney, who had lost no time 
in coming round to the other window. 

“Now,” said she, “bid the man take me to the 
Pump Room.” She leaned her head out and 
Lord Verney put his close to hers, and there 
followed another conclave. 

“Madam, madam, I demand the fulfilment of 
your promise!” from the other side came Cap- 


8 


The Bath Comedy 


tain Spicer’s clamouring thin voice. “Verney, 
my good fellow, I must request you to retire, 

there is a compact between this lady and me ” 

“A compact?” said the mask turning her head. 
“Oh, madam, the vision of that entrancing coun- 
tenance !” 

He strove to unfasten the chair door, when: 
“What?” cried she, “and rob you of all the charm 
of uncertainty and all the joy of guessing and all 
the spice of being able to take away the charac- 
ter of every lady of Bath. Oh,” she said, “I 
hope I have been better taught my duty to 
my neighbour!” Out went her head again to 
Lord Verney; there was another whisper, a sil- 
ver laugh. “On, men!” she cried. 

Lord Verney skipped round and in his turn 
dragged the discomfited Captain out of the win- 
dow and restrained him by main force from 
running after the retreating chairmen and their 
fair burden. 


Scene X. 


ORD MARKHAM was a person of in- 



definite appearance, indefinite age and in- 
definite manners. He wore an ill-fitting wig, but 
he had a high reputation as a man of honour. He 


88 


The Bath Comedy 


sat beside Sir Jasper on the front seat, while on 
the back sat Tom Stafford ; and the curricle sped 
cheerily along through the up-and-down Bath 
streets out into the country budding with green, 
down, down the hill, to Hammer’s Fields by the 
winding Avon. Sir Jasper’s face bespoke great 
dissatisfaction with life at large, and with his own 
existence in particular. Tom Stafford was be- 
ginning to feel slightly bored. 

“ ’Tis an early spring,” said Lord Markham, in 
the well-meant endeavour to beguile away the 
heavy minutes and distract his principal’s mind. 
“ ’Tis very mild weather for the time of year ; and 
the lambs are forward.” 

“Ugh !” said Sir Jasper. 

“Speak not to him of lambs,” whispered Staf- 
ford ; “do not you see he is all for blood and 
thunder?” 

Then he added maliciously: “There is but one 
animal in the whole fauna that Sir Joseph takes 
an interest in at present, and that’s not easy it 
seems to find in these purlieus, though we know 
it does haunt them: ’tis the red dear!” He 
chuckled, vastly delighted with the conceit. 

“Let us hope we shall not have rain,” said Lord 
Markham, “these clouds are menacing.” 

“Nay, they will hold up for half-an-hour. Enough 


The Bath C9medy 


89 


to serve our purpose,” growled Sir Jasper, and 
tipped the horses with the lash so that they 
spurned the slope. 

‘‘But we shall get wet returning,” pleaded the 
well-meaning Earl, “I said so all along ; ’twould 
have been better to have gone in a coach.” 

“I vow,” cried Sir Jasper with a sudden burst 
of spleen, “I vow that I have it in my heart to 
wish that Villiers’ ball may speed so well that I 
may feel neither rain nor shine, coming home 
again. Home again,” said he with a withering 
smile ; “blast it, a pretty home mine is !” 

“And a pretty cheerful fellow you are to bring 
out to a merry meeting,” quoth Stafford from the 
back, “and a nice pair of fools you and the Colo- 
nel be, plague on you both! And when you are 
shot, ’twill be a fine satisfaction to think that your 
wife can console herself with the owner of the 
red curl, eh? What are you going to fight old 
Villiers about, I should like to know?” 

“You do know,” growled Sir Jasper, then he ex- 
ploded. “You goad me, sir, do I want to fight 
Villiers? Is not this business the merest fooling; 
sheer waste of time when the real fellow — vil- 
lain ! — has eluded me ?” His hold on the reins 
tightened, he laid on the whip, and the curricle 
swayed as the horses leaped and plunged. 


90 


The Bath Comedy 


“Really,” said Lord Markham, “I wish I had 
come in a coach.” 

And: “Hold on,” cried Stafford, “hold on, 
Jasper; we don’t all want to leave our bones in 
this business.” 

There came a pause in the conversation. They 
bowled along a more level road with the wind 
humming in their ears, and the rhythmic trot of 
the greys beating a tune. Then Stafford re- 
marked vaguely : 

“I have a notion there will be no duel to-day at 
Hammer’s Fields, Jasper, that you will be able 
to return with undiminished vigour to the hunt 
of the unknown culprit.” 

“How now,” cried Sir Jasper fiercely, “have you 
heard from Villiers? Are they all rats now-a- 
days? Verney first, then that Spicer, then the 
Colonel? No, no, the fellow was mad with me, 
sir ; and — gad ! — the offence was mine !” 
“Nevertheless,” said Stafford unmoved, “ I hap- 
pen to know that Colonel Villiers’ man was sent 
in all haste for his physician, Sir George Waters, 
at such an unconscionable hour this morning that 
Sir George despatched the apothecary in his 
stead, and the apothecary found our fire-eating 
Colonel roaring in a fit of the most violent gout 
’tis possible to imagine. So violent, indeed, that 


The Bath Comedy 91 

poor Mr. Wigginbotham was soundly beat by 
the Colonel for not being Sir George. Villiers’ 
foot is as large as a pumpkin, old Foulks tells me ; 
I had it all from Foulks over a glass of water in 
the Pump Room this morning, and zooks, sir, 
his false teeth rattled in his head as he tried to 
describe to me the awful language Colonel Vil- 
liers was using. He’s to be Villiers’ second you 
know, but he swore ’twas impossible, rank im- 
possible, for any man to put such a foot to the 
ground.” 

They were rounding the corner of Hammer’s 
Fields as he spoke, and Stafford’s eyes roaming 
over the green expanse of grass rested upon the 
little group drawn up towards the entrance gate. 
“Unless,” he went on, “the Colonel comes upon 
crutches. No, zounds ! ha, ha ! Jasper, I will 
always love you, man, for the capital jokes you 
have provided of late. Strike me ugly, if the old 
fellow has not come — in a bath-chair !” 

“Really,” said Lord Markham, “this is very ir- 
regular. I have never before been privy to a 
duel where one of the combatants fought in a 
chair. And I am not sure that I can undertake 
the responsibility of concluding arrangements in 
such circumstances.” 

“Blasted nonsense !” said Sir Jasper with all his 


The Bath Comedy 


o2 

former urbanity of demeanour. He flung the 
reins to his man as he spoke, and clambered down 
from the curricle. Stafford had gone before him 
to the gate and was now stamping from one foot 
to another in exquisite enjoyment of the situation. 
“(Ha, ha, ha!) Hello! Morning, Colonel, sorry 
to see you this way ! ( Ha, ha ! ) Have you 
brought another bath-chair for our man? Oh, 
come, yes. ’Twon’t be fair if he do not sit in a 
bath-chair too! Say, Foulks, you wheel one 
chair, I’ll wheel the other, and we will run them 
one at the other and let them fire as soon as they 
please. Gad, what a joke!” 

Colonel Villiers turned upon his volatile friend a 
countenance the colour of which presented some 
resemblance to a well-defined bruise on the third 
day; it was yellow and green with pain where 
it was not purple with fury. 

“Mr. Stafford, sir, these jokes, sir, are vastly 
out of place. (Curse this foot!) Mr. Foulks, 
have the kindness to explain . . . Major 

Topham, explain to these gentlemen that I have 
come out to fight, sir, and that fight I will, by the 
living jingo !” He struck the arm of the chair in 
his fury, gave his suffering foot a nasty jar, and 
burst into a howl of rage and agony. 

“Stap me,” said Stafford, “I’d as soon fight an 


The Bath Comedy 93 

old bear ! Whisper, Foulks, is he going to shoot 
in his cage — beg pardon, I mean his chair?” 
“Such is his intention,” said Mr. Foulks, grin- 
ning nervously as he spoke, and showing the set 
of fine Bond Street ivory already referred to by 
Mr. Stafford. “But it strikes me it is some- 
what irregular.” 

“Somewhat irregular?” ejaculated Lord Mark- 
ham ; “it is altogether irregular. I decline to 
have anything to say to it.” 

Sir Jasper remained standing gloomily looking at 
the ground and driving his gold-headed malacca 
into the soft mud as if all his attention were di- 
rected to the making of a row of little tunnels. 
“What is the difficulty, what is the difficulty?” 
bellowed Colonel Villiers. “You wheel me into 
position, and you mark the paces, eight paces, 
Foulks, not a foot more, and you give me my pis- 
tol. What is the difficulty — blast me, blast you 
all,, I say. What is the difficulty ?” 

“The combatants will not be equal,” suggested 
Major Topham. “I told Villiers that I will 
gladly take his place.” 

“No, no, no,” screamed the old man turning 
round, and then, “Oh !” cried he, and screwed up 
his face. And then the gout had him with such 
fury that he gripped the arms of his chair and 


94 The Bath Comedy 

flung back his head displaying a ghastly counte- 
nance. 

“I remember,” champed old Foulks, “the dear 
Duke of Darlington insisted upon fighting Basil 
Verney (that’s Verney’s father, you know) with 
his left arm in splints, but as my Lord Marquis 
of Cranbroke, his Grace’s second, remarked to 
me at the time ” 

“Oh, spare us the Marquis!” interrupted Staf- 
ford brutally. “Let us keep to the business on 
hand, if you please. The whole thing is absurd, 
monstrous ! Look here, Jasper, look here, Colo- 
nel, you two can’t fight to-day. How could you be 
equally matched even if we got another bath- 
chair for Jasper. We cannot give him the gout, 
man, and ’t would be too dashed unfair. Gad, 
Colonel, you would shoot too well or too ill, 
’twon’t do ! Come, come, gentlemen, let us make 
a good business out of a bad one. Why should 
you fight at all? Here’s Jasper willing to apolo- 
gise. (Yes you are, Jasper, hold your tongue 
and be sensible for once ; you pulled off his wig, 
you know. Gad, it was not pretty behaviour, not 
at all pretty!) But then, Colonel, did not he 
think you had cut him out with his wife, and was 
not that a compliment? The neatest compliment 
you’ll ever have this side the grave ! He was 


9 


The Bath Comedy 

jealous of you, Colonel; faith, I don’t know an- 
other man in Bath that would do you so much 
honour, now-a-days.” 

“Oh, take me out of this,” cried the Colonel, 
suddenly giving way to the physical anguish that 
he had been struggling against so valiantly. 
“Zounds, I will fight you all some day ! Take me 
out of this. Where is that brimstone idiot, my 
servant? Take me out of this, you devils!” 
Between them they wheeled his chair into the 
road and his screams and curses as he was lifted 
into the coach were terrible to hear. 

“Lord, if he could but call out the gout!” cried 
Stafford. “Look at him, gentlemen ! Ha, he has 
got his footman by the periwig. Oh, ’tis as good 
as a play, he is laying it on to the fellow like a 
Trojan! Why, the poor devil has escaped, but 
his wig is in the Colonel’s hands. Ha, ha, he has 
sent it flying out of the coach ! Off they go ; 
what a voice the old boy has got, he is trumpeting 
like an elephant at the fair! Well, Jasper, what 
did I say? No duel to-day.” 

“Do not make so sure of that,” said Sir Jasper. 
He was moving towards the curricle as he spoke, 
and turned a sinister face over his shoulder to his 
friend. 

“Oh,” cried the latter, and fell back upon Mark- 


9 6 


The Bath Comedy 


ham, “the fellow’s look would turn a churn full 
of cream! No, I will not drive back with ye, 
thankye, Sir Jasper, I will walk. Devil take it,” 
said Stafford, “I don’t mind a little jealousy in 
reason myself, and if a husband has been given 
a pair of horns, I don’t see why he should not 
give somebody a dig with them ; but if I were to 
drive home in that company, I’d have no ap- 
petite for dinner. Come, gentlemen, ’tis a lovely 
day, let us walk.” 

So Sir Jasper rolled home alone, and, as his 
coachman observed a little later as he helped to 

unharness the sweating horses, “drove them 
cruel !” 


Scene XI. 



ADY STANDISH was one of those clinging 


L* beings who seem morally and physically to 
be always seeking a prop. Before adversity she 
was prostrate, and when his lordship, the Bishop 
of Bath and Wells was ushered into her sitting- 
room, half-an-hour after Sir Jasper’s departure 
for Hammer’s Fields, he found the poor lady 
stretched all her length upon the sofa, her head 
buried in the cushions. 


97 


The Bath Comedy 

“Dear me,” said his lordship, and paused. He 
was a tall, portly, handsome gentleman with 
sleek countenance, full eye, and well-defined 
waistcoat. Could human weakness have touched 
him, he would have felt a pride in those legs 
which so roundly filled the silk stockings. But 
that human weakness could ever affect the Bishop 
of Bath and Wells was a thing that dignitary 
(and he gave his Maker thanks for it) felt to be 
utterly inconceivable. 

“Lady Standish,” said the Bishop ; then he waved 
his hand to the curious servants. “Leave us, 
leave us, friends,” said he. 

Lady Standish reared herself with a sort of 
desperate heartsickness into a sitting posture and 
turned her head to look dully upon her visitor. 
“You come too late,” she said* “my lord, Sir 
Jasper has gone to this most disastrous meeting.” 
“My dear Lady Standish,” said Dr. Thurlow, 
“my dear child,” he took a chair and drew it to 
the sofa, and then lifted her slight languid hand 
and held it between his two plump palms. “My 
dear Lady Standish,” pursued he in a purring, 
soothing tone. If he did not know how to deal 
with an afflicted soul (especially if that afflicted 
soul happened to belong to the aristocracy and 
in preference inhabited a young female body), 


9 8 


The Bath Comedy 


who did? “I came upon the very moment I re- 
ceived your letter. I might perhaps have in- 
stantly done something to help in this matter, 
had you been more explicit, but there was a slight 
incoherence . . . very natural !” Here he 

patted her hand gently. “A slight incoherence 
which required explanations. Now tell me — I 
gather that your worthy husband has set forth 
upon an affair of honour, eh? Shall we say a 
duel?” 

Lady Standish gave a moaning assent. 

“Some trifling quarrel. Hot-headed young men ! 
It is very reprehensible, but we must not be too 
hard on young blood. Young blood is hot ! Well, 
well, trust in a merciful Providence, my dear 
Lady Standish. You know, not a sparrow falls, 
not a hair of our heads, that is not counted. Was 
the, ah — quarrel, about cards, or some such social 
trifle?” 

“It was about me,” said the afflicted wife in a 
strangled voice. 

“About you, my dear lady!” The clasp of the 
plump hand grew, if possible, a trifle closer, al- 
most tender. Lady Standish was cold and mis- 
erable, this warm touch conveyed somehow a 
vague feeling of strength and comfort. 

“About me,” she repeated, and her lip trembled. 
“Ah, is it so? And with whom does Sir Jasper 


The Bath Comedy 


99 


fight ?” 

“With Colonel Villiers,” said she, and shot a 
glance of full misery into the benign large-fea- 
tured face bending over her. 

“Colonel Villiers,” repeated the Bishop in tones 
of the blankest astonishment. “Not — eh, not — 
eh, old Colonel Villiers ?” 

“Oh, my lord,” cried Lady Standish, “I am the 
most miserable and the most innocent of 
women !” 

“My dear madam,” cried the Bishop, “ I never 
for an instant doubted the latter.” His hold upon 
her arm relaxed, and she withdrew it to push 
away the tears that now began to gather thick 
and fast on her eyelashes. The Bishop wondered 
how it was he had never noticed before what a 
very pretty woman Lady Standish was, what 
charming eyes she had, and what quite unusually 
long eyelashes. It was something of a revelation 
to him too, to see so fair and fine a skin in these 
days of rouge and powder. 

"“And yet,” sobbed Lady Standish, “ ’tis my fault 
too, for I have been very wrong, very foolish! 
Oh, my Lord, if my husband is hurt, I cannot 
deny ’tis I shall bear the guilt of it.” 

“Come, tell me all about it,” said the Bishop, and 
edged from his chair to her side on the sofa, and 


UefQ, 


IOO 


The Bath Comedy 


re-possessed himself of her hand. She let it 
lie in his; she was very confiding. “We are all 
foolish,” said Dr. Thurlow, “we are all, alas, 
prone to sin.” He spoke in the plural to give 
her confidence, not that such a remark could 
apply to any Bishop of Bath and Wells. 

“Oh, I have been very foolish,” repeated the lady. 
“I thought, my lord, I fancied that my husband's 
affection for me was waning.” 

“Impossible!” cried his lordship. But he felt 
slightly bewildered. 

“And so, acting upon inconsiderate advice, I — 
I pretended — only pretended indeed — my lord, 
that I cared for someone else, and Sir Jasper got 
jealous and so he has been calling everybody out 
thinking he has a rival.” 

“Nevertheless,” said the Bishop, “he has no rival. 
Do I understand you correctly, my dear child? 
These suspicions of his are unfounded? Colonel 
Villiers?” 

“Colonel Villiers,” cried she, “that old stupid 
red-nosed wretch ! No, my lord, indeed 
there is no one. My husband has my whole 
heart !” She caught her breath and looked up at 
him with candid eyes swimming in the most at- 
tractive tears. Colonel Villiers !” cried she. “Oh, 
how can you think such a thing of me ? But my 


I O I 


The Bath Comedy 

husband will not believe me ; indeed, indeed, in- 
deed I am innocent! He was jealous of Lord 
Verney too, and last night fought Mr. O’Hara/’ 
The Bishop smiled to himself with the most be- 
nign indulgence. He was a soul overflowing 
with charity, but it was chiefly when dealing 
with the foibles of a pretty woman that he ap- 
preciated to the full what a truly inspired or- 
dinance that of charity is. 

“My dear child, if I may call you so, knowing 
your worthy mother so well, you must not grieve 
like this. Let me feel that you look upon me as 
a friend. Let me wipe away these tears. Why, 
you are trembling! Shall we not have more 
trust in the ruling of a merciful Heaven? Now 
I am confident that Sir Jasper will be restored to 
you uninjured or with but a trifling injury. And 
if I may so advise, do not seek, my dear Lady 
Standish, in the future to provoke his jealousy in 
this manner; do not openly do anything which 
will arouse those evil passions of anger and ven- 
geance in him !” 

“Oh, indeed, indeed,” she cried, and placed her 
other little hand timidly upon the comforting 
clasp of the Bishop’s, “indeed I never will again !” 
“And remember that in me you have a true 
friend, my dear Lady Standish. Allow me to 


102 


The Bath Comedy 


call myself your friend.” 

Here there came a sound of flying wheels and 
frantic hoofs without, and the door-bell was 
pealed and the knocker plied so that the sum- 
mons echoed and re-echoed through the house. 
“Oh, God!” screamed Lady Standish, springing 
to her feet, “ they have returned! Oh, heavens, 
what has happened? If he is hurt I cannot bear 
it, I cannot — I cannot !” She clasped her head 
wildly and swayed as if she would have fallen. 
What could a Christian do, a gentleman and a 
shepherd of souls, but catch her lest she fall? 
Half mad with terror she turned and clung to 
him as she would have clung to the nearest 
support. 

“Have courage,” he purred into the little ear; 
“I am with you, dear child, have courage.” 

So they stood, she clasping the Bishop and the 
Bishop clasping her, patting her shoulder, whis- 
pering in her ear, when Sir Jasper burst in upon 
them. 

It was his voice that drove them apart, yet it 
was neither loud nor fierce, it was only blightingly 
sarcastic. 

“So !” said he. 

What was it Stafford had said: “There’s the 
Bishop of Bath and Wells. He’s red, as red as 


The Bath Comedy 103 

a lobster, from top to toe! They have a way, 
these divines.” Oh, Stafford knew doubtless : all 
Bath knew ! Sir Jasper cursed horribly in his 
heart, but aloud only said : “So !” 

Lady Standish flew half across the room to him 
with a joyful cry, but was arrested midway by 
his attitude, his look. The Bishop said, “Ahem,” 
and “ahem” again, and then said he : 

“I rejoice, I rejoice Sir Jasper, to see you return 
unscathed. Lady Standish has been greatly 
distressed.” 

“And you,” said Sir Jasper, drily, “have been 
consoling her.” 

“To the best of my poor power,” said the Bishop, 
and felt, he knew not why ( if indeed it were pos- 
sible for him to feel that way!) a shade uncom- 
fortable. 

Sir Jasper closed the door and bowed. 

“I think,” said he, “I ought to crave pardon for 
this intrusion.” 

“Oh, Sir Jasper!” cried my lady. 

Her husband turned towards her for a second. 
She wilted beneath his eye and sank into a chair. 
“Oh, Sir Jasper,” said she, maundering, “the 
Bishop has been very kind. I have been so un- 
happy about you.” 

“I see,” said Sir Jasper, “that his lordship has 


104 


The Bath Comedy 


been very kind. His lordship, as I said, has been 
administering consolation.” 

Here all at once his stoniness gave way. He 
walked towards the Bishop and bent a ghastly 
face close to the florid uneasily smiling counte- 
nance. 

“My lord,” said Sir Jasper, “your cloth will not 
protect you.” 

“Sir!” ejaculated the divine. 

“Your cloth will not protect you!” repeated Sir 
Jasper in that voice of strenuous composure that 
seems to tremble on a shriek. “Oh, shepherd, 
you !” 

“Sir!” cried the Bishop, “do you mean to in- 
sinuate ” 

“I insinuate nothing,” cried the other and 
sneered. “So, madam,” he turned again to his 
wife, “this is your choice, eh? You were always 
a pious woman, were you not? You would like 
to have the approval of the Church upon your 
acts, would you not?” Indescribable was the 
sarcasm upon his lip. 

“Really,” said the Bishop, “I am seriously an- 
noyed.” He looked reproachfully at Lady Stan- 
dish. “Madam,” said he, “I came to you, as you 
know, in pure charity, in unsuspecting friend- 
ship. I was not prepared for this.” 


The Bath Comedy 


105 


“Ha, ha,” said Sir Jasper with a hideous laugh. 
“No, sir, I have no doubt you were not prepared 
for this. Pure, ha — unsuspecting — this is pleas- 
ant ! Be silent, madam, these groans, these croco- 
dile tears have no effect upon me. Come, my 
Lord Bishop, your sanctimonious airs cannot take 
me in. Have I not read your letter? Oh, you 
have got a very fine head of hair, but I know 
. . . there is a curl missing! Ha, Julia, you 

should take better care of your love-tokens.” 

“I vow,” said Dr. Thurlow, majestically, “that 
your behaviour, your words are quite beyond my 
poor comprehension. — Madam, I pity you from 
my heart! — Sir Jasper, sir,” folding his arms 
fiercely, “your servant. I wish you good-morn- 
ing.” He strode to the door, his fine legs quiver- 
ing with indignation beneath their purple silk 
meshes. 

“No!” said Sir Jasper, and seized him roughly 
by the skirts. “No, you do not escape me thus !” 
“How now!” cried the Bishop, the veins on his 
forehead swelling, and the nostrils of his hand- 
some Roman nose dilating. “Would you lay 
hands upon the Lord’s anointed? Let go my 
coat, Sir Jasper!” 

He struck at Sir Jasper’s retaining hand with 
his own plump fist clenched in a fashion sug- 


io 6 The Bath Comedy 

gestive of pulpit eloquence. 

“Ha! you would, would you?” exclaimed Sir 
Jasper, and leaped at the Episcopal throat. 

The next instant, to his intense astonishment, Sir 
Jasper found himself in an iron grip; lifted into 
the air with an ease against which all his re- 
sistance was as that of a puppet; shaken till his 
teeth rattled, and deposited on the flat of his 
back upon the floor. 

“Oh, help, help, help !” screamed Lady Standish. 
“Really,” said the Bishop, “I don’t know when I 
have been so insulted in my life. Tis the whole 
Church, sir, the Church of England, the State 
itself , that you have assaulted in my person !” 

He stood glaring down on the prostrate foe, 
breathing heavy rebuke through his high dig- 
nified nose. 

“You have committed blasphemy, simony, sacri- 
lege, rank sacrilege,” thundered Dr. Thurlow. 
Sir Jasper gathered himself together like a 
panther, and sprang to his feet; like a panther, 
too, he took two or three stealthy steps, and, half 
crouching, measured the muscular Bishop with 
bloodshot eyes, selecting the most vulnerable por- 
tion of anatomy. He panted and foamed. The 
air was thick with flying powder. 

Lady Standish flung herself between them. 


The Bath Comedy 107 

“In mercy, my lord,” she cried, “leave us — leave 
us !” 

Here the door opened and butler and delighted 
footmen burst into the room. 

The Bishop turned slowly. The grace of his 
vocation prevailed over the mere man. 

“May Heaven pardon you,” he said. “May 
Heaven pardon you, sir, and help you to chasten 
this gross violence of temper. And you, madam,” 
said he, turning witheringly upon the unfortunate 
and long-suffering lady, “may you learn womanly 
decorum and circumspection !” 

“You shall hear from me again,” growled Sir 
Jasper, murderously. — “Toombs,” cried he to the 
butler with a snarl, “show the Bishop the door !” 
The Bishop smiled. He wheeled upon them all a 
stately back, and with short deliberate steps with- 
drew, taking his cane from the footman with a 
glassy look that petrified Thomas, and refusing 
Mr. Toombs’ proffered ministrations as he might 
have waved aside a cup of poison. “Vade retro 
Satanas,” he seemed to say; and so departed, 
leaving his pastoral curse voicelessly behind him. 


108 The Bath Comedy 

Scene XII. 

H OW beautiful you are!” said Lord Ver- 
ney. 

He was sitting on a stool at Mistress Bellairs’ 
feet. She had abandoned to him one plump 
taper-fingered hand. The gay little parlour of 
the Queen Square house was full of sunshine 
and of the screeching ecstasy of Mistress Kit- 
ty’s canary bird. 

“How beautiful you are!” said he; it was for 
the fourth time within the half-hour. Conver- 
sation between them had languished somehow. 
Kitty Bellairs flung a sidelong wistful look 
upon her lover’s countenance. His eyes, gaz- 
ing upwards upon her, devoured her beauty with 
the self-same expression that she had found so 
entrancing earlier in the day. “Deep wells of 
passion,” she had told herself then. Now a chill 
shade of misgiving crept upon her. 

“His eyes are like a calf’s,” she said to herself 
suddenly. 

5j! ^S * # >)S5K Sfc ' 

“How beautiful — ” thus he began to murmur 
once again, when his mistress’s little hand, 
twitching impatiently from his grasp, surprised 
him into silence. 


The Bath Comedy 109 

“Oh dear! a calf in very truth,” thought she. 
“Baah — baa ooh. . . . What can I have seen 
in him? ’Twas a sudden pastoral yearning 
1 ” 

“May I not hold your hand?” said he, shifting 
himself to his silken knees and pressing against 
her. 

Yet he was a pretty boy and there was a charm 
undoubted in the freshness of this innocence and 
youth awakening to a first glimmer of man’s 
passion. 

“Delightful task — ” she quoted under her breath, 
and once more vouchsafed him, with a sweep 
like the poise of a dove, her gentle hand. 

As it lay in his brown fingers, she contemplated 
it with artistic satisfaction and played her little 
digits up and down, admiring the shape and 
colour of the nails, the delicate dimples at the 
knuckles. But Lord Verney’s great boy’s paw 
engulfed them all too quickly, and his brown 
eyes never wavered from their devout contem- 
plation of her countenance. 

“How ” 

Mistress Kitty sprang to her feet. 

“I vow,” she cried, “ ’tis my hour for the waters, 
and I had clean forgot them !” 

She called upon her maid : 


I IO 


The Bath Comedy 


“Lydia, child, my hat! — Lord Verney, if it please 
you, sir, your arm as far as the Pump Room.” 
(“At least,” she thought to herself, “all Bath 
shall know of my latest conquest.”) 

She tied her hat ribbons under her chin. 

“How like you the mode?” said she. And, 
charmed into smiles again by the rosy vision 
under the black plumes, she flashed round upon 
him from the mirror. “Is it not, perhaps, a 
thought fly-away? Yet ’tis the latest. What says 
my Verney?” 

The poor youth vainly endeavoured to discrim- 
inate and criticise. 

“It is indeed a very fine hat,” said he . . . 

“and there seems to be a vast number of feath- 
ers upon it.” He hesitated, stammered. “Oh, 

what care I for modes ! ’Tis you, you ” 

“What are you staring at, girl?” cried Mistress 
Bellairs sharply, to her Abigail. “Out with 
you !” 

“Well, my Verney?” said she. “Mercy, how 
you look, man ! Is anything wrong with my 
face?” 

She tilted that lovely little piece of perishable 
bloom innocently towards him, as she spoke. 
And the kiss she had read in his eyes, landed 
with unprecedented success upon her lips. 


1 1 1 


The Bath Comedy 

“Why, who knows?'’ thought she, with a little 
satisfied smile, as she straightened her modish 
hat. “There may be stuff in the lad, after all!” 
She took his arm. Dazed by his own audacity, 
he suffered her to lead him from the room. 
They jostled together down the narrow stairs. 
“How beautiful you are!” said he; and kissed 
her again as they reached the sombre dark-pan- 
elled vestibule. 

“Fie !” said she with a shade of testiness and 
pushed him back, as her little black page ran to 
open the door. 

The kiss, like his talk, lacked any heightening 
of tone — and what of a lover’s kiss that shows 
no new ardour, what of a vow of love that has 
no new colour, no fresh imagery? But the trees 
in Queen Square were lightly leafed with pale, 
golden-green. The sunshine was white-gold, 
the breeze fresh and laughing; the old grey 
town was decked as with garlands of Young 
Love. 

“He is but new to it,” she argued against her 
fleeting doubts, “and he is, sure, the prettiest 
youth in all Bath.” 

Love and Spring danced in Mistress Kitty’s light 
heart and light heels as she tripped forth. And 
Love and Spring gathered and strove and sought 
outlet in Verney’s soul as inevitably, and irresist- 


I 12 


The Bath Comedy 


ibly, and almost as unconsciously as the sap in 
the young shoots that swayed under the caress 
of the breeze and amorously unfurled them- 
selves to the sunlight. 

The Pump Room was cool and dim after the 
grey stone street upon which the young year’s 
sunshine beat as fierce as its youth knew how. 
The water droned its little song as it welled 
up, faintly steaming. 

“Listening to it,” quoth Mistress Kitty. “How 
innocent it sounds, how clear it looks !” 

With a smile she took the glass transferred to 
her by Verney, and : “Ugh !” said she, “how 
monstrous horrid it tastes, to be sure ! ’Tis, I 
fear,” she said, again casting a glance of some 
anxiety at her new lover’s countenance, “a sym- 
bol of life.” 

“Yet,” said he, “these waters are said to be 
vastly wholesome.” 

“Wholesome !” cried Mistress Kitty, sipping 
again, and again curling her nose upwards and 
the corners of lips downwards, in an irresistibly 
fascinating grimace. “Wholesome, my lord ! 
Heaven defend us! And what is that but the 
last drop to complete their odiousness ! Whole- 
some, sir? I would have you know ’tis not for 


The Bath Comedy 113 

wholesomeness I drink.” She put down her 
glass, undiminished save by the value of a 
bird’s draught. “Do I look like a woman who 
needs to drink waters for ‘wholesomeness ?’ ” 
“Indeed, no,” floundered he in his bewildered 
way. 

“There are social obligations,” said she, sen- 
tentiously. “A widow, sir, alone and unpro- 
tected, must conform to common usage. And 
then I have another reason, one of pure senti- 
ment.” 

She cocked her head and fixed her mocking eye 
upon him. 

“My poor Bellairs,” said she, “how oft has it 
not been my pleasure and my duty to fill such a 
glass as this and convey it to his lips? In his 
last years, poor angel, he had quite lost the use 
of his limbs !” 

Lord Verney had no answer appropriate to these 
tender reminiscences; and Mistress Kitty, hav- 
ing, it seemed, sufficiently conformed to the 
usage of Bath, as well as sacrificed to the manes 
of the departed, turned briskly round, and lean- 
ing against a pilaster began to survey the room. 
“Law ! how empty !” quoth she. “ ’Tis your 
fault if I am so late, my lord. Nobody, I swear, 
but that Flyte woman, your odious Spicer, sir, 


1 14 The Bath Comedy 

— ha, and old General Tilney. Verily, I be- 
lieve these dreadful springs have the power of 
keeping such mummies in life long after their 
proper time. ’Tis hardly fair on the rest of 
the world. Why, the poor thing has scarce 
a sense or a wit left, and yet it walks ! Heaven 
preserve us ! why, it runs !” she cried suddenly 
with a little chirp, as the unfortunate veteran 
of Dettingen, escaping from the guiding hands 
of his chairman, started for the door with the 
uncontrolled trot of semiparalytic senility. 

“And that reminds me,” said Mistress Kitty, 
“that Sir George is most particular that I should 
walk five minutes between every glass. Here 
comes your estimable aunt, Lady Maria, and 
her ear-trumpet, and the unfortunate Miss Se- 
lina. I protest, with that yellow feather she 
she is more like my dear dead Toto than ever.” 
“Was that your pet name for your husband?” 
murmured Lord Verney, in a strangled whis- 
per. 

“Fie, sir!” cried the widow. “My cockatoo — I 
referred to my cockatoo.” She sighed pro- 
foundly. “I loved him,” she said. 

He looked at her, uncertain to which of the la- 
mented bipeds she referred. 

“Selina,” cried Lady Maria, in the strident tones 


ll S 


The Bath Comedy 

of the deaf woman persuaded of her own con- 
sequence (the voice of your shy deaf one loses 
all sound in her terror of being loud) — “Selina, 
how often must I tell you that you must dip 
in my glass yourself! Who’s that over there? 
Where are my eyeglasses? Who’s that, did you 
say? Mistress Bellairs? Humph! And who’s 
she got with her in tow now? Who did you 
say? Louder, child, louder. What makes you 
mumble so? Who? Verney — Lord Verney? 
Why, that’s my nevvy. Tell him to come to me 
this minute. Do you hear, Selina, this minute! 
I won’t have him fall into the net of widow Bel- 
lairs !” 

The cockatoo top-knot nodded vehemently. Poor 
Miss Selina, agitated between consciousness that 
the whole Pump Room was echoing to Lady 
Maria’s sentiments and terror of her patroness, 
took two steps upon her errand, and halted, flut- 
tering. Lord Verney had flushed darkly pur- 
ple. Mistress Kitty hung with yet more affec- 
tionate weight upon his arm and smiled with 
sweet unconsciousness. For the moment she was 
as deaf as Lady Maria. 

The latter’s claw-like hand had now disengaged 
a long-stemmed eyeglass from her laces. 

’Tis indeed,” she pronounced in her command- 


The Bath Comedy 


ii 6 

ing bass, “my nevvy Verney with that vile Bel- 
lairs ! — Nevvy! Here, I say! — Selina, fool, have 
you gone to sleep?” 

An echo, as of titters, began to circle round the 
Pump Room. The painted face of Lady Flyte 
was wreathed into a smile of peculiar signifi- 
cance, as she whispered over her glass to her 
particular friend of the moment, Captain Spicer. 
This gentleman’s pallid visage was illumined 
with a radiance of gratified spite. His lips 
were pursed as though upon a plum of 
super-delicious gossip. He began to whisper 
and mouthe. Young Squire Greene approached 
the couple with an eager ear and an innocent 
noddy face that strove to look vastly wise. 

“I assure you,” mouthed the Captain. “Was 
I not there?” 

“In his bedroom ?” cried Lady Flyte, with a shrill 
laugh. 

Lady Maria’s cockatoo crest rose more fiercely. 
It seemed to Kitty Bellairs as if she heard the 
old lady’s jaws rattle. It was certain that in 
her wrath she squawked louder than even the 
late lamented Toto. Then Mistress Kitty, who, 
to say the truth, began to find the scene a little 
beyond enjoyment, felt the young arm upon 
which she leaned stiffen, the young figure beside 


The Bath Comedy 117 

her rear itself with a new manliness. 

'Tray, Mistress Bellairs,” said my Lord Ver- 
ney, he spoke loudly and, to her surprise, with 
perfect facility, even dignity, “will you allow 
me to introduce you to my aunt, Lady Maria 
Prideaux? — Aunt Maria,” said he, and his voice 
rang out finely, imposing a general silence, “let 
me present Mistress Bellairs. This lady has 
graciously condescended to accept me as her fu- 
ture husband. I am the happiest and the most 
honoured of men.” 

The last sentence he cried out still more em- 
phatically than the rest, and then repeated it 
with his eye on Kitty’s suddenly flushed cheek, al- 
most in a whisper and with a quiver of strong 
emotion. 

The astounded Mistress Kitty rose from her deep 
curtsey with a swelling heart. 

“The dear lad,” she said to herself. “The dear, 
innocent chivalrous lad !” 

There was almost a dimness in her brilliant black 
eye. Her emotion was of a kind she had never 
known before : it was almost maternal. 

Under stress of sudden genuine emotion, the wit 
of intrigue in the cleverest woman falls in abey- 
ance. Mistress Bellairs found no word out of the 
new situation. 


1 1 8 


The Bath Comedy 


Lady Maria’s deafness had increased to an 
alarming extent. 

“Gratified, I’m sure,” she mumbled, stuck out 
her dry hand and withdrew it before Mistress 
Bellairs had had time to touch it. 

“My future wife,” bawled the budding peer, in 
his aged relative’s ear. 

It was curious to note how old Lady Maria 
seemed suddenly to have become. Huddled in 
herself she nodded vacantly at her nephew. 
“Thank ye for asking, child,” said she, “but the 
waters try me a good deal.” 

Lord Verney attempted another shout in vain. 
“So Sir George says,” remarked my lady. 

“ ’Tis the very eye of my poor dear Toto,” 
thought Mistress Bellairs. 

Lord Verney looked round in despair. Miss Se- 
lina thought him monstrous handsome and gal- 
lant and her poor old-maid’s heart warmed to the 
lover in him. She approached Lady Maria and 
gently lifted her trumpet. 

Lady Maria, glad enough of a diversion, applied 
it to her ear with unwonted affability. 

“What is it, my dear? Any sign of the Duch- 
ess ?” 

“Your nephew,” said Miss Selina in modest 
accents, “your nephew, my Lord Verney, wishes 


The Bath Comedy 


119 


to inform you that he is about to contract a 
matrimonial alliance with the lady he has just 
introduced to you.” 

Miss Selina blushed behind the mouthpiece as 
she made this announcement. Then she cried: 
“Oh,” with an accent of suffering, for Lady 
Maria had rapped her over the knuckles with the 
instrument. 

“Matrimonial fiddlesticks!” said Lord Verney’s 
aunt. “Selina, you’re a perfect fool! — Madam,” 
remarked the wraith of the departed cockatoo, 
inclining her crest with much dignity towards 
the blooming Kitty, “I wish you good-morning.” 


Scene XIII. 



HERE must have been a curious magic in 


1 the words, “My future wife,” for no 
sooner had he pronounced them than Lord Ver- 
ney became several inches taller, a distinct span 
broader, and quite unreasonably older. In fact, 
from boyhood he had stepped to man’s estate. 
He looked down protectingly at the little woman 
hanging on his arm. The seriousness of respon- 
sibility settled upon his brow. 

“Ah, Verney,” quoth Mr. Stafford, flicking a hot 
brow, as he dashed in out of the sunshine, pow- 


120 


The Bath Comedy 


dered with white dust from his walk and still 
bubbling with laughter. “Ah, Verney, playing 
butterfly in the golden hours while other fellows 
toil in the sweat of their brow! Jingo! lad, but 
you’ve lit on the very rose of the garden. — Mis- 
tress Kitty Bellairs, I kiss your hand.” 

At this Mistress Kitty felt her future lord’s arm 
press her fingers to his ribs, while he straightened 
his youthful back. 

“Mr. Stafford,” began he in solemn tones, “this 
lady ” 

But she, knowing what was coming, interrupted 
ruthlessly. 

“And pray, Mr. Stafford,” quoth she, cocking 
her head at him with those birdlike airs and 
graces that were as natural to her as to any 
mincing dove — Mistress Kitty being of those that 
begin by making eyes in their nurses’ arms, be- 
fore they can speak, and end in a modish lace 
nightcap for the benefit of the doctor — “and 
whence may you come so late, and thus heated ?” 
“Whence?” cried Mr. Stafford, and overcome by 
the humour of his recollections, roused the sol- 
emn echoes of the Pump Room by his jovial 
laugh. “Ah, you may well ask ! from the merriest 
meeting it has ever been my fate to attend. Oh, 
the face of him in his chair, between his gout 


I 2 I 


The Bath Comedy 

and his temper! And fire-eating Jasper all for 
bullets ; and old Foulks’ teeth ready to drop out 
of his head at the indecorousness of it all ! — 
Spicer, man, aha! hold me up. — Oh, madam," 
cried Mr. Stafford, wiping tears of esctasy from 
his eyes and leaning as unceremoniously against 
Spicer as if the latter’s lank figure were a pilaster 
specially intended for his support — “oh, madam, 
I could make you laugh had I the breath left for 
it.” 

“Indeed,” cried Mistress Kitty, plunging in 
again, as it became evident to her that Lord Ver- 
ney, with the gentle obstinacy that was part of 
his character, was once more preparing to make 
his nuptial statement. “Mr. Stafford, please 
speak then, for in sooth it seems to me a vastly 
long time since I have laughed.” 

“Gad ! you actually make me curious,” put in Mr. 
Stafford’s prop. 

“Oh dear, oh dear!” sighed Mr. Stafford, in a 
fresh fit, “ha, ha! By the way, Verney, weren’t 
you also to have walked with the jealous husband 
this morning? — Ah, by the same token, and you 
too, Spicer? Gad. I’m glad you didn’t, for if 
either of you had put lead in him I’d have missed 
the best joke of the season. Gad, I may say so. 
He, he, aha-ha, ho, ho!” 


J i2 The Bath Comedy 

“Mr. Stafford,” said my Lord Verney, as solemn 
as any owl, while Mistress Kitty, caught by the 
infection of the genial Stafford’s mirth, tittered 
upon his arm, “I have deeper reason than you 
think of to rejoice that the absurd misunder- 
standing was cleared up between Sir Jasper and 

myself. This lady and I ” 

“Oh dear, the joke, the joke!” cried Mistress 
Bellairs, with loud impatience, and stamped her 
little foot. 

“Oh, my fair Bellairs,” grasped Mr. Stafford, 
“had you but been there to share it with me !” 

“This lady ” quoth Lord Verney. 

“I wish indeed I had been!” cried she. And in 
very truth she did. 

“Mistress Bellairs,” said the determined lover, 
“has consented to make me the happiest of men.” 
“Eh?” cried Mr. Stafford, and stopped on the 
edge of another guffaw. 

Mistress Kitty cast down her eyelids. She felt 
she looked demure and almost bashful, and she 
hated herself in this character. 

Mr. Stafford was one of the thirty-seven lovers 
of whom the lady had spoken so confidently, and 
as such was far from realising the solemn mean- 
ing of Lord Verney ’s announcement. 

“Ah, madam,” cried he reproachfully, “is’t not 


The Bath Comedy 123 

enough to keep me for ever in Hades, must you 
needs add to my torture by showing me another 
in Paradise? But, my little Verney,” he went 
on, turning good-naturedly to his young rival, 
“it is but fair to warn you that you will be wise 
to pause before getting yourself measured for 
your halo : the Paradise of this lady’s favour is 
(alack, do I not know it?) of most precarious 
tenure.” 

“This lady, sir,” said Lord Verney, with rigid 
lips, “has promised to be my wife.” 

It was fortunate that Mr. Stafford had a prop: 
under the shock he staggered. Man of the world 
as he was, the most guileless astonishment was 
stamped on his countenance. 

Oh, how demure looked Mistress Kitty! 

Spicer, a trifle yellow, became effusive in con- 
gratulations — congratulations which were but 
coldly received by his patron. 

“Ah, Kitty,” whispered Mr. Stafford in Mistress 
Bellairs’ shell-like ear, “do you like them so ten- 
der-green? Why, my dear, the lad’s chin is as 
smooth as your own. What pleasantry is this?” 
Kitty scraped her little foot and hung her head. 
Mistress Kitty coy ! And yon poor innocent with 
his air of proprietorship — ’twas a most humorous 
spectacle ! 


124 


The Bath Comedy 


“I’m sure, Verney,” cried Mr. Stafford, “I wish 
you joy, ha, ha! with all my heart! And you, 
madam, he, he, — forgive me, friends — the 
thought of Sir Jasper’s duel is still too much for 
me. Ha, ha! Support me, Spicer.” 

“She’ll marry him, she’ll marry him,” cried 
Spicer with bilious vindictiveness, looking over 
his shoulder at the couple, as they moved away. 
“Marry him ! — never she !” cried Stafford. 
“Kitty’s no fool. Why, man, the little demon 
wouldn’t have me! She loves her liberty and 
her pleasure too well. Did you not see? She 
could not look up for fear of showing the devil- 
ment in her eye. Cheerily, cheerily, my gallant 
Captain!” cried the spark, and struck the reedy 
shoulders that had buttressed him, in contemptu- 
ous good-natured valediction. “You need not 
yet cast about for a new greenhorn to subsist 
upon.” 

* * * * * * * 

Mistress Kitty, glancing up at her Calf, found, 
something to her astonishment and further dis- 
pleasure, a new expression in his eyes. Ardour 
had been superseded by an unseasonable grav- 
ity. 

“The creature is a complete menagerie!” she 
thought to herself, indignantly. “I vow he looks 


I2 5 


The Bath Comedy 

like nothing but an owl in the twilight !” 

They wandered together from the Pump Room 
onto the Abbey Flags, and so, slowly, into the 
cool and shady Orange Grove; and in a seques- 
tered spot they sat them down on a stone bench. 
“When a man,” said he, “has been, as I have, 
brought face to face, within the space of one 
short morning, with the great events of ex- 
istence, Death and Love, how hollow and how 
unworthy do the mock joys and griefs of 
Society appear to him!” 

“Oh la!” said she. “You alarm me. And 
when did you see Death, my lord?” 

“Why,” said he, with his innocent gravity, “had 
you not intervened, my dearest dear, between 
Sir Jasper and me, this morning, who knows 
what might have happened?” 

“Oh, that !” said she, and her lip curled. 

“Ay,” said he, “where should I be now, Kitty? 
The thought haunts me in the midst of my 
great happiness. Had I killed Sir Jasper, could 
I have looked upon myself other than as a mur- 
derer ?” 

“Oh, fie, fie,” interpolated his mistress impa- 
tiently, “who ever thinks of such things in lit- 
tle matters of honour?” 

In her heart she told herself that the young man 


126 


The Bath Comedy 


showed a prodigious want of savoir-vivre. In 
all candour he proceeded to display a still greater 
lack of that convenient quality. 

“On the other hand, had I fallen, and that in- 
deed was the more likely contingency, it being 
my first affair of the kind, I tremble to think 
in what state my soul would have appeared be- 
fore its Maker.” His voice quivered a moment. 
“My Lord Verney,” cried Kitty, turning upon 
him a most distressed countenance, “you have 
no idea how you shock me !” 

And indeed he had not. 

He took her distress for the sweetest womanly 
sympathy, and was emboldened to further con- 
fidence. 

“I blush to tell you,” he said, “that since I came 
to this gay Society of Bath, my life has not been 
all my conscience could approve of. The pious 
practices, the earnest principles of life so sedu- 
lously inculcated in me by my dear mother, have 
been but too easily cast aside.” 

“Oh dear !’” cried Kitty in accents of yet greater 
pain. 

“When we are married, my dear love,” pursued 
Lord Verney, quietly encircling his mistress’s lit- 
tle waist with his arm as he spoke, but, absorbed 
as he was in his virtuous reflections, omitting 


The Bath Comedy 


127 


to infuse any ardour into his embrace, “we 
shall not seek the brilliant world. We shall 
find all our happiness with each other, shall we 
not? Oh, how welcome my dear mother will 
make you at Verney Hall! It has always been 
her dream that I should marry early and settle 
on the estate.” 

Little shivers ran down Kitty’s spine. “Is it 
your intention to live with your mother when 
you are married?” she faltered, and leaned 
weakly against the inert arm. 

Enthusiastically he cried that the best of mothers 
and he could never be parted long. 

“Oh, how you will love her!” he said, looking 
fondly at the Kitty of his imagination. 

“From your tenderest years she sedulously in- 
culcated in you earnest principles and pious 
practices, did she not?” murmured the Kitty of 
reality, with what was almost a moan. 

“She did indeed,” cried the youth. 

Mistress Kitty closed her eyes and let her head 
droop upon his shoulder. 

“I fear I am going to have the vapours,” said 
she. 

“ ’Tis, maybe, the spring heats,” said he, and 
made as if he would rise. 

“Maybe,” said Mistress Kitty, becoming so limp 


128 


The Bath Comedy 


all at once that he was forced to tighten his 
clasp. He glanced at her now in some alarm. 
She half opened bright eyes, and glimmered 
a languid little smile at him. 

“At least,” thought the widow, “if we must part 
(and part we must, my Calf and I) we shall part 
on a sweet moment. What, in a bower, every 
scent, every secret bird and leaf and sunbeam of 
which calls on thought of love, and I by his side, 
he to prate of his mother! And at least he not 
bleat of my beauty again, my name is not Kitty !” 
She sighed and closed her eyes. The delicate 
face lay but a span from his lips. 

“I fear indeed you are faint,” said he with solici- 
tude. “My mother has a sovereign cordial 
against such weakness.” 

Mistress Bellairs sat up very energetically for a 
fainting lady. 

“Your mother . . . ,” she began with a flash 
of her eye, then checked herself abruptly. “Adieu, 
Verney,” said she, and stretched out her hand 
to him. 

“Adieu !” he repeated, all bewilderment. 

“Ay,” said she, “there chimes the. Abbey its silly 
old air. How long have I been with you, sir, 
alone? Fie, fie, and must I not think of my 
reputation ?” 


129 


The Bath Comedy 

“Surely, as my future wife ...” said he. 
“Why then the more reason,” she said cutting 
him short ; “must I not show myself duly dis- 
creet? Think of your lady mother! Come, sir, 
take your leave.” 

A moment she was taunting; a moment all de- 
licious smiles. 

“I’ll make him bleat!” she thought, and stamped 
her foot upon it. 

“As far as your door?” said he. 

“Not a step,” she vowed. “Come, sir, adieu.” 
He took her hand ; bent and kissed her sedately. 
“I will,” said he, “go write the news to my 
mother.” 

“Oh, go!” said she and turned on her heel with 
a flounce and was out of his sight, round the cor- 
ner of an alley, with a whisk and flutter of 
tempestuous petticoats, before his slow boy’s wits 
had time to claim the moment for the next meet- 
ing. 

There were actually tears in Mistress Kitty’s 
eyes as she struck the gravel with her cane. She 
rubbed her cherry lips where his kiss had rested 
with a furious hand. 

“ ’Twas positively matrimonial,” she cried within 
herself, with angry double-threaded reminis- 
cence — “the Calf! Did ever woman spend a 


1 3 2 


The Bath Comedy 


more ridiculous hour — and in Heaven’s name, 
what’s to be done ?” 


Scene XIV. 

D ENNIS O’HARA appropriately lived in Gay 
Street. As all the world knows, Gay Street 
runs steeply from the green exclusiveness of 
Queen Square, to the lofty elegance, the columnal 
solemnity of the King’s Circus. Being a locality 
of the most fashionable., Gay Street was apt to 
be deserted enough at those hours when Fashion, 
according to the unwritten laws of Bath, fore- 
gathered in other quarters. 

Towards eight o’clock of the evening of the day 
after his duel with Sir Jasper, Mr. Denis O’Hara, 
seated at his open window, disconsolate in a 
very gorgeous dressing-gown and a slight fever 
fit, found it indeed so damnably deserted that 
the sight of a sedan-chair and two toiling chair- 
men coming up the incline became quite an ob- 
ject of interest to him. 

“To be sure,” thought he, “don’t I know it’s only 
some old hen being joggled home to roost, after 
losing sixpence and her temper at piquet. But 
sure, what’s to prevent me beguiling myself for a 
bit by dreaming of some lovely young female 


The Bath Comedy 13 1 

coming to me in me misfortune? Sure, it’s 
the rats those fellows are, that not one of them 
would keep me company to-night! There’s no- 
body like your dear friends for smelling out an 
-empty purse. Musha !” said Mr. O’Hara, putting 
his head out of the window, “if the blessed ould 
chair isn’t stopping at me own door !” 

A bell pealing through the house confirmed his 
observation. 

“It’s a woman ! By the powers, it’s a woman ! 
Tim, Tim, ye divil !” roared Mr. O’Hara, “come 
to me this minute, or I’ll brain ye.” 

Conscious of his invalid neglige, he rose in his 
chair; but, curiosity proving stronger than de- 
corum, was unable to tear himself from his post 
of vantage at the window. 

“Oh ! the doaty little foot !” he cried in rapture, 
as arched pink-silk instep and a brocade slipper 
of daintiest proportion emerged, in a little cloud 
of lace, from the dim recesses of the chair, upon 
his delighted vision. 

He turned for a moment to bellow again into the 
room : 

“Tim, you limb of Satan, where are you at all? 
Sure, I’m not fit to be seen by any lady, let alone 
such a foot as that!” 

When he popped his head once more through the 


132 


The Bath Comedy 


window, only the chairmen occupied the street. 
“It’s for the ground floor, of course : for the 
French marquis,” said O’Hara, and sat down, 
feeling as flat as a pancake. 

The next instant a knock at the door sent the 
quick blood flying to the red head. The “limb 
of Satan,” more generally known as Tim Ma- 
honey, an ingratiating, untidy fellow, with a cun- 
ning leer and a coaxing manner, stood ogling his 
master on the threshold; then he jerked with his 
thumb several times over his shoulder, and 
grinned with exquisite enjoyment. 

“What is it?” said O’Hara fiercely. 

Tim winked, and jerked his thumb once more. 
“Speak, ye ugly divil, or by heavens I’ll spoil 
your beauty for you.” 

“Your sisther!” cried Tim, with a rumbling sub- 
terraneous laugh. 

“Me sisther, man?” 

“Ay, yer honour,” said the scamp, who, as 
O’Hara’s foster-brother, was well aware that his 
master boasted no such gentle tie. “Sure she’s 
heard your honour’s wounded, and she’s come to 
visit you. T’m Misther O’Hara’s sister,’ says 
she ” 

“And am I not ?” cried a sweet voice behind him, 
“or, if not, at least a very, very dear cousin, and, 


The Bath Comedy 133 

in any case, I must see Mr. O’Hara at once, and 
alone.” 

“To be sure,” cried O’Hara, eagerly rising in 
every way to the situation, and leaping forward. 
“Show in the lady, you villain ! — Oh, my darl- 
ing !” cried the Irishman, opening generous arms, 
“but I am glad to see ye! — Tim, you scoundrel, 
shut the door behind you !” 

The visitor was much enveloped, besides being 
masked. But there was not a moment’s hesitation 
in the ardour of Mr. O’Hara’s welcome. 

“Sir, sir!” cried a faint voice from behind the 
folds of lace, “what conduct is this?” 

“Oh, sisther darling, sure, me heart’s been hung- 
ering for you ! Another kiss, me dear, dear 
cousin !” 

“Mr. O’Hara!” cried Mistress Bellairs, in tones 
of unmistakable indignation; tore off her mask, 
and stood with panting bosom and fiery eye. 
'“Tare and ages !” exclaimed the ingenuous Irish- 
man. “If it isn’t me lovely Kitty!” 

“Mistress Bellairs, if you please, Mr. O’Hara,” 
said the lady with great dignity. “I am glad to 
see, sir, that that other passion of which I have 
heard so much has not interfered with the 
strength of your family affections.” 

She sat down and fanned herself with her mask, 


i34 


The Bath Comedy 


and, looking haughtily round the room, finally 
fixed her gaze, with much interest, upon the left 
branch of the chandelier. 

For a second, Mr. O’Hara’s glib tongue seemed 
at a loss ; but it was only for a second. With a 
graceful movement he gathered the skirts of his 
fine-flowered damask dressing-gown more closely 
over the puce satin small clothes, which, he was 
sadly conscious, were not in their first freshness, 
besides bearing the trace of one over-generous 
bumper of what he was fond of calling the ruby- 
wine. Then, sinking on one knee, he began to 
pour a tender tale into the widow’s averted 
ear. “And it’s the fine ninny ye must think 
me, Kitty darling — I beg your pardon, darl- 
ing; ma’am it shall be, though I vow to see 
ye toss your little head like that, and set all those 
elegant little curls dancing, is enough to make 
anyone want to start you at it again. Oh, sure, 
it’s the divine little ear you have, but, be jabers, 
Kitty, if it’s the back of your neck you want to 
turn on me — there, now, if I was to be shot for it, 
I couldn’t help it — with the little place there just 
inviting my lips.” 

“Keep your kisses for your sister, sir, or your 
cousin !” 

“What in the world And dy’e think I didn’t 


The Bath Comedy 


*35 


know you ?” 

“A likely tale !” 

“May I die this minute if I didn’t know you be- 
fore ever you were out of the ould chair!” 
“Pray, sir,” with an angry titter, “how will even 
your fertile wits prove that?” 

“Sure, didn’t I see the little pink foot of you 
step out, and didn’t I know it before ever it 
reached the ground?” 

“Lord forgive you !” said Mistress Kitty gravely. 
But a dimple peeped. 

He had now possessed himself of her hand, 
which he was caressing with the touch of the 
tentative lover, tenderer than a woman’s, full of 
mute cajoling inquiry. 

“I hope the Lord may forgive me for setting up 
and worshipping an idol. I believe there’s some- 
thing against that in the commandments, darl- 
ing, but sure, maybe, old Moses wouldn’t have 
been so hard on those Israelites if they’d had the 
gumption to raise a pretty woman in the midst 
of them, instead of an old gilt Calf.” 

At this word, Mistress Kitty gave a perceptible 
start. 

“Oh, dear,” said she, “never, never speak to me 
of that dreadful animal again! Oh, Denis,” she 
said, turning upon him for the first time her full 


136 


The Bath Comedy 


eyes, as melting and as pathetic just then as it 
was in their composition to look, “I am in sad, 
sad trouble, and I don’t know what to do !” 

Here she produced a delicate handkerchief, and 
applied it to her eyelashes, which she almost be- 
lieved herself had become quite moist. 

“Me jewel !” cried Mr. O’Hara, preparing to ad- 
minister the first form of consolation that oc- 
curred to him. 

“Be quiet,” said Mistress Kitty testily. “Get up, 
sir! I have to consult you. There, there, sit 
down. Oh, I am in earnest, and this is truly 
serious.” 

Mr. O’Hara, though with some reluctance, 
obeyed. He drew his chair as near to the widow’s 
as she would permit him, and pursed his lips into 
gravity. 

“You know my Lord Verney,” began the fas- 
cinating widow. 

“I do,” interrupted the irrepressible Irishman, 
“and a decent quiet lad he is, though, devil take 
him, he makes so many bones about losing] 
a few guineas at cards that one would think they 
grew on his skin!” 

“Hush,” said she. “/ can't abide him!” 

Mr. O’Hara half started from his armchair. 
“Say but the word,” said he, “and I’ll run him 


1 37 


The Bath Comedy 

through the ribs as neat as ” 

“Oh, be quiet,” cried the lady, in much exaspera- 
tion. “How can you talk like that when all the 
world knows he is to be my husband !” 

“Your husband !” Mr. O’Hara turned an an- 
gry crimson to the roots of his crisp red hair. 
Then he stopped, suffocating. 

“But I don’t want to marry him, you gaby,” 
cried Mistress Kitty, with a charming smile. 
Her lover turned white, and leaned back against 
the wing of his great chair. The physician had 
blooded him that morning by way of mending 
him for his loss of the previous night, and he 
felt just a little shaky and swimming. Mistress 
Kitty’s eye became ever more kindly as it marked 
these flattering signs of emotion. 

“The noodle,” said she vindictively, “mistook the 
purport of some merely civil words, and forth- 
with went about bleating to all Bath that he and 
I were to be wed.” 

“I’ll soon stop his mouth for him,” muttered Mr. 
O’Hara, moved to less refinement of diction than 
he usually affected. “Oh, Kitty,” said he, and 
wiped his pale brow, “sure, it’s the terrible fright 
you’ve given me!” 

Here Mistress Bellairs became suddenly and in- 
explicably agitated. 


The Bath Comedy 


138 

“You don’t understand,” said she, and stamped 
her foot. “Oh, how can I explain? How are 
people so stupid ! I was obliged to go to his 
rooms this morning — a pure matter of friendship, 
sir, on behalf of my Lady Standish. Who would 
have conceived that the calf would take it for 
himself and think it was for his sake I interfered 
between him and that madman, Sir Jasper ! Tis 
very hard,” cried Mistress Kitty, “for a lone 
woman to escape calumny, and now there is my 
Lord Verney, after braying it to the whole of 
Bath, this moment writing to his insufferable old 
mother. And there is that cockatoo aunt of his 
looking out her most ancient set of garnets and 
strass for a wedding gift. And, oh dear, oh dear ; 
what am I to do?” 

She turned over the back of her chair, to hide her 
face in her pocket-handkerchief. In a twinkling, 
O’Hara was again at her feet. 

“Soul of my soul, pulse of my heart!” cried he. 
“Sure, don’t cry, Kitty darling, I’ll clear that 
little fellow out of your way before you know 
where you are.” 

“Indeed, sir,” she said, flashing round upon him 
with a glance surprisingly bright, considering 
her woe. “And is that how you would save my 
reputation? No, I see there’s nothing for it,” 


x 39 


The Bath Comedy 

said Mistress Kitty with sudden composure, fold- 
ing up her handkerchief deliberately, and gazing 
up again at the chandelier with the air of an early 
martyr, “there’s nothing for it but to pay the 
penalty of my good-nature and go live at Verney 
Hall between my virtuous Lord Verney and that 
paragon of female excellence and domestic piety,, 
his mother.” 

“Now, by St. Peter,” cried O’Hara, springing to 
his feet, “if I have to whip you from under his 
nose at the very altar, and carry you away myself* 
I’ll save you from that, me darling!” 

“Say you so?” cried the lady with alacrity. 
“Then, indeed, sir,” she proceeded with sweetest 
coyness, and pointed her dimple at him, “I’ll not 
deny but what I thought you could help me, when 
I sought you to-night. There was a letter, sir,” 
she said, “which yester morning I received. 

’Twas signed by a lock of hair ” 

“Ah, Kitty!” cried the enraptured and adoring 
Irishman, once more extending wide his arms. 
“Softly, sir,” said she, eluding him. “Let us to 
business.” 


140 


The Bath Comedy 

Scene XV. 


B UT you must understand,” said the lady, 
“that you carry me off against my will.” 

“To be sure,” said he. “Isn’t poor Denis O’Hara 
to run away with you merely to save your repu- 
tation ?” 

“So if I scream, sir, and give you a scratch or 
two, you will bear me no malice?” 

“Bear you malice, is it?” said he, stopping to 
kiss each finger-tip of the hand which he con- 
trived somehow should never be long out of his 
clasp. “Me darling, sure, won’t I love to feel 
your little pearls of nails on my cheek?” 

“And spare no expense upon chaise or horses,” 
said she. 

’“Eh?” cried Mr. O’Hara, while a certain vague- 
ness crept into his gaze. “Me dear love, the 
best that money can produce — that money can 
produce,” said Mr. O’Hara, and his eye rolled 
under the stress and strain of an inward cal- 
culation : (“There’s my grandfather’s watch ; ,1’m 
afeared the works are not up to the gold case, 
but it might run to four guineas. And there’s 
my jewelled snuff-box that the Chevalier gave 
my father — no, dash it, that’s gone ! There’s my 
silver-hilted sword — I could exchange it for a 


The Bath Comedy 141 

black one and perhaps five guineas. And there’s 
my three sets of Mechlin.”) 

While he cogitated, the lady smiled upon him 
with gentle raillery; then she popped her hand 
in her pocket and drew forth a well-filled case. 
“And did you think,” said she, laying the case 
on the table, “that I would have the face to ask 
a rich lover to elope with me?” 

“Faith,” said he, pursuing now aloud his silent 
addition, “there’s the gold punch-bowl, too! I 
vowed as long as I’d a drop to mix in it I’d never 
part with the thing; but, sure, I little guessed 
what was in store for me — that will make twenty 
guineas or more. Put up your money, Kitty; 
I’ll not consent to be paid for carrying you off, 
except,” said he, “by your sweet lips.” 

“Now listen, sir,” she cried, lifting up her finger, 
“you’re a poor man.” 

“I am that,” said he. 

“And I,” said she, “am a rich woman.” 

“Oh!” cried he, “Kitty, my darling, and sure 
that’s the last thing in the world I’d ever be think- 
ing of now. When I laid my heart at your feet, 
my dear, ‘twas for your own sweet sake, with 
never a thought of the lucre. What’s money 
to me,” said he, snapping his fingers, “not that , 
Kitty darling! I despise it. Why,” he went on 


142 


The Bath Comedy 


with his charming infectious smile, “I never had 
a gold piece in my pocket yet, but it burned a 
hole in it.” 

She listened to him with a curious expression, 
half contemptuous, half tender. Then she nod- 
ded. 

“I well believe you,” said she. “Come, come, 
Denis, don’t be a fool. Since the money is there, 
and we know for what purpose, what matters 
it between you and me who puts it down.” 

“Ah,” he cried, with a sort of shame, abandoning 
his light tone for one of very real emotion, 
“you’re an angel ! I’m not worthy of you, but I’ll 
try, Kitty, I’ll try.” 

The lady looked slightly embarrassed. 

“I protest, sir; I cannot have you going on your 
knees again,” she cried sharply, “and it’s getting 
late, and the business is settled, I think.” 

“Leave it to me,” said he; “sure, I could do it 
blindfold.” 

'“Have the post-chay at the corner of Bond Street 
and Quiet Street, ’tis the darkest in Bath, I 
think.” 

“Ay, and the relay at Devizes, for we’ll have to 
push the first stage.” 

“And after?” said she, and looked at him doubt- 
ingly. 


H3 


The Bath Comedy 

‘‘And after that — London. And sure I know an 
old boy in Covent Garden that will marry us 
in a twinkle/’ 

She nibbled her little finger. The rapture evoked 
on his countenance by this last prospect was not 
reflected upon hers. 

“But you forget,” said she, “that I am to be 
abducted against my will, and what will people 
say if I marry you at the end of the journey 
without more ado?” 

“Oh, faith,” said he, without a shade of uneasi- 
ness, “shouldn’t I be a poor fellow if I did not 
contrive to persuade you on the way. And then, 
what would the world say if you did not marry 
me after travelling all night with such a wild 
Irish devil? Sure,” said he, with a wink, “what 
else could a poor woman do to save her repu- 
tation ?” 

“True,” said she, musingly, and tapped her teeth. 
She tied on her mask once more and drew up 
her hood, passive, in her mood of deep reflection, 
to his exuberant demonstrations. At the door 
she paused and looked back at him, her eyes 
strangely alluring through the black velvet peep- 
hole, her red lips full of mysterious promise 
beneath the black lace fall. 

“And I never asked,” said she, in a melting tone, 


144 


The Bath Comedy 


“after your wound? Does it hurt you? Will 
you be able, think you, to face the fatigues 
to-morrow night?” 

“Ah, I have but one complaint, Kitty,” he cried, 
“and that’s my mortal passion for you. And 
when a man’s weak with love,” he said, “sure 
it’s then he’s the strength of twenty.” 

“Not a step further,” said she, “than this door. 
Think of the chairmen and Bath gossip. Good- 
night.” 


Scene XVI. 

A ND now, child, what’s the town talk?” said 
Mistress Bellairs. 

The nights were chilly, and a log crackled on the 
hearth. Kitty, in the most charming deshabille, 
stretched a pink slippered foot airily towards the 
blaze. 

“La, ma’am,” said Miss Lydia, as with nervous 
fingers she uncoiled one powdered roll and curl 
after another, “all the morning the gossip was 
upon Sir Jasper’s meeting with Colonel Villiers 

at Hammer’s Fields. And all the afternoon ” 

she paused and poised a brush. 

“All the afternoon? Speak, child. You know,” 


I 45 


The Bath Comedy 

said her mistress piously, “that I had to spend 
my evening by the side of a dear sick friend.” 
“Well, ma’am,” said the maid, “the talk is all 
about your own marriage with the young Lord 
Verney.” 

“Mercy, girl,” cried the lady with a little scream, 
“you needn’t hit my head so hard with those 
bristles ! What’s taken you ? And what do 
people think of that?” 

“Why, ma’am,” said the Abigail, wielding her 
brush more tenderly, and permitting her irrita- 
tion to betray itself only in the sharp snap of her 
voice, “my Lord Verney ’s man says he pities 
anyone that will have to go and live with her old 
la’ship at Verney Hall.” 

“Ha!” said Kitty, and gave herself a congratu- 
latory smile in the handglass. 

“And Mr. Burrell, ma’am, that Lady Maria Pri- 
deaux’s butler, and a wise old gentleman he is, 
he says the marriage’ll never take place, ma’am, 
for neither his own la’ship, nor the lady at 
Verney Hall, would allow of it, ma’am.” 

“Oh, indeed?” cried Mistress Bellairs, stiffen- 
ing herself, “that’s all they know about it ! Lydia, 
you untruthful, impertinent girl, how dare you 
tell me such a story?” 

“I’m sure I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Ly- 


146 


The Bath Comedy 


dia, sniffing. “I'm sure I up and told Mr. Bur- 
rell that if you’d set your heart on wedding such 
a poor ninny as Lord Verney — I beg pardon, 
ma’am, I’m sure he’ll be a very nice young noble- 
man, when his beard begins to grow — ’twas not 
likely a deaf old cat like his mistress could pre- 
vent him. And I told Lord Verney’s man, 
ma’am — and an impudent fellow he is — that 
you’d soon teach the dowager her place, once you 
were mistress in Verney Hall.” 

“Well, well,” said the lady, mollified, “and what 
says the rest of your Bath acquaintance?” 
“Squire Juniper’s head coachman says his mas- 
ter’ll drink himself to death, as sure as eggs, on 
the day that sees you another’s, ma’am. He’s 
been taking on terrible with Madeira ever since 
he’s heard the news. And the Marquis’ running 
footman, he says ‘that Lady Flyte’ll have it all her 
own way with his lordship now, and more’s the 
pity, for,’ says he, ‘her la’ship’s not fit to hold 
a candle to the widow;’ excuse the language, 
he knows no better, his strength is mostly in 
his legs, ma’am. And Mr. Stafford’s jockey 
says, ma’am, that in his opinion you’re a lady 
as will never be drove again in double harness.” 
“Did he say so, indeed !” said Mistress Bel- 
lairs, reflectively. “Well, my good creature, and 


1 47 


The Bath Comedy 

what say you?” 

“La!” said the maid, and the brush trembled 
over her mistress’s curls, “I say, ma’am, that 
if you was to make such a sacrifice, you so 
young, and lovely, and so much admired, I hum- 
bly hopes you might pick out someone livelier 
than my Lord Verney.” 

“Now, whom,” said Mistress Bellairs, in a tone 
of good-humoured banter, “would you choose, I 
wonder? What would you say to the Marquis, 
Lydia?” 

“Oh, ma’am ! His lordship is a real nobleman 
— as the prize fighters all say — and a better 
judge in the cockpit, Mr. Bantam, the trainer, 
says, never breathed, drunk or sober; and no 
doubt when he’s sober, ma’am, he’d make as 
good a husband as most.” 

■“Well, well, girl, enough of him. What of Mr. 
Stafford, now?” 

“Oh, Mr. Stafford, ma’am, that’s a comely gentle- 
man; not one bit of padding under his stock- 
ings, and an eye ’twould wheedle the very heart 
out of one’s bosom. And, no doubt, if you ever 
thought of him, ma’am, you’d see that he paid 
off the little French milliner handsome. He’s 
a very constant gentleman,” said Miss Lydia, 
with a suspicion of spite. 


148 


The Bath Comedy 


‘‘Pooh,” cried the lady, and pushed her chair 
away from the fire, “what nonsense you do talk ! 
And pray what thinks your wisdom of Mr. 
O'Hara?” 

“Lud ! ma'am,” cried the guileless maiden, 
“that’s the gentleman as was found behind Lady 
Standish’s curtains.” 

“If you were not a perfect idiot,” cried the 
widow, “you would not repeat that absurd tale, 
much less expect me to believe It. Mr. O’Hara 
has never even spoken to Lady Standish.” 

The unusual warmth in her mistress’s tone struck 
the girl’s sharp wits. She glanced quickly at 
the lady’s reflection in the glass, and made no 
reply. 

“Come,” said Mistress Bellairs, “what else have 
you against him? Is he not handsome, child?” 
“Why, ma’am, handsome enough for such as 
like red hair.” 

“And merry, and good company?” 

“Oh, ma’am, none better, as half the rogues in 
Bath know.” 

“Tush — you mean he is good-natured, I sup- 
pose ?” 

“He never said ‘no’ in his life, ma’am, I do 
believe, to man or woman.” 

“Well, then?” cried her mistress testily. 


146 


The Bath Comedy 

“And generous,” gabbled Lydia, charmed by the 
cloud she beheld gathering on the brow reflected 
in the glass. “Open-handed, ma’am. Mr. Ma- 
honey — that queer peculiar servant of his — many 
a time he's told me, ma’am, that his only way 
to keep his wages for himself, and seldom he 
sees the sight of them, is to spend them at 
once, for his good master is that free-handed, 
ma’am, he’d give the coat off his servant’s back.” 
“I’m quite aware,” said the lady loftily, “that 
Mr. O’Hara’s estates in Ireland are slightly 
embarrassed.” 

“I don’t know what they call it, ma’am,” cried 
Lydia shrilly. “It’s not a ha’porth of rent the 
old lord’s seen these twelve months. Last year 
they lived on the pictures. And now it’s the 
plate, I’m told. But, indeed, ma’am, as Mr. Ma- 
honey says, what does it matter to a gay gentle- 
man like Mr. O’Hara? Sure, he’s the sort, as 
he says to me only yesterday, that would come 
to a fortune on Monday and be sending to the 
pawnshop on Saturday.” 

“You may go to bed, Lydia,” cried Mistress Bel- 
lairs, rising hastily; “you’ve half deafened me 
with your chatter.” 

Left alone the little lady sat down by the fire in 
a melancholy mood. 


1 5 o 


The Bath Comedy 


“The sort that would come to a fortune on Mon- 
day, and be sending to the pawnshop on Sat- 
urday I’m afraid it’s true. Yet, I 

believe, he loves me, poor Denis ! I vow,” she 
said to herself, “ ’tis the only one of them all 
that I could endure. Yes, I could endure Denis, 
urday. . . . I’m afraid it’s true. Yet, I 

now,” said she, “what’s to be done! Oh, I’d 
be loath to baulk him of the pleasure of running 
away with me ! ’tis the only decent way indeed 
of breaking with my Lord Verney. And it 
certainly struck me that Master Stafford was 
mighty cool upon the matter. I’ve been too quiet 
of late, and that odious Bab Flyte thinks she 
can have everything her own way. . . . But, 

I’ll be rescued,” she said, “at Devizes — I shall 
have to be rescued at Devizes. My poor dear; 
he may be happy at least for an hour or two 
. . . as far as Devizes !” 

Her brow cleared ; the dimples began to play. 
“We shall see,” she smiled more broadly, “if 
we cannot prod his Calfship into a night trot. 
’Twill do his education a vastness of service 
Bq,t the poor creature,” she reflected 
further, “is scarce to be depended on. Who 
knows whether his mother would approve of his 
breathing the night air. ... I must,” Mis- 


The Bath Comedy 151 

tress Kitty’s pretty forehead became once more 
corrugated under the stress of profound thought 
— ‘‘I must,” she murmured, “have another string 
to my bow, or my sweet O’Hara will marry me 
after all. Dear fellow, how happy we should 
be from Monday . . . till Saturday! Who? 
Who, shall it be? . . . “My Lord Marquis 

might take the role in earnest and spoil my 
pretty fellow’s beauty. Squire Juniper? He 
would sure be drunk. And Master Stafford? 
Oh, he may stay with the French milliner for 
me!” 

Suddenly the lady’s perplexed countenance be- 
came illumined. “Sir Jasper?” she said. “Sir 
Jasper — the very man! The good Julia — I owe 
it to her to bring matters to an e clair cissement. 
And, Sir Jasper — oh, he richly deserves a mid- 
night jolt, for ’tis owing to his monstrous jeal- 
ousy that I am put to all this trouble. ’Twill be 
a fine thing indeed,” thought Mistress Bellairs 
with a burst of self-satisfied benevolence, “if 
I can demonstrate to Sir Jasper, once for all, the 
folly into which this evil passion may lead a 
man.” 



152 


The Bath Comedy 


Scene XVII. 

I F you please, my lady,” said Mistress Megrim, 
“I should like to quit your ladyship’s serv- 
ice.” 

“How?” cried Lady Standish, waking with a 
start out of the heavy sleep of trouble, and prop- 
ping herself upon her elbow, to gaze in blinking 
astonishment at the irate pink countenance of her 
woman. Lady Standish looked very fair and 
young, poor little wife, with her half-powdered 
curls of hair escaping in disorder from the laces 
of her nightcap, and her soft blue eyes as full of 
uncomprehending grief as a frightened baby’s. 
Mistress Megrim gazed upon her coldly and her 
old-maid’s heart hardened within her. 

“No, your ladyship,” said she, with a virtuous 
sniff, “I shouldn’t feel as I was doing my duty 
to her ladyship, your mother, nor to my humble 
self, were I to remain an hour longer than I 
could help, the Handmaid of Sin.” 

“Oh, dear,” said Lady Standish, letting herself 
fall back on her pillows with a weary moan, “I 
do wish you’d hold your tongue, woman, and 
allow me to rest! Pull the curtain again; oh, 
how my head aches !” 


152 


The Bath Comedy 

"‘Very well, my lady,” ejaculated Megrim, all at 
once in a towering passion. “Since you’re that 
hardened, my lady, that a sign from Heaven 
couldn’t melt your heart — I allude to that man 
of God, his lordship the Bishop (oh, what a holy 
gentleman that is!) ; and, my lady, me and Mis- 
tress Tremlet saw him out of the pantry window 
as he shook the dust of this House of Iniquity 
from his shoes; if that vessel of righteousness 
could not prevail with your ladyship, what hopes 
have I that you’ll hear the voice of the Lord 
through me?” 

“Megrim, hold your tongue,” said her mistress 
in unwontedly angered tones; “pull the curtains 
and go away !” 

With a hand that trembled with fury Mistress 
Megrim fell upon the curtains and rattled them 
along their pole. Then she groped her way to 
Lady Standish’s bedside and stood for some sec- 
onds peering malevolently at her through the 
darkness. 

“I wouldn’t believe it, my lady,” she hissed in a 
ghastly whisper, “although indeed I might have 
known that such a gentleman as Sir Jasper would 
never have taken on like that if he hadn’t had 
grounds. But you’ve mistaken your woman, 
when you think you can make an improper go- 


*54 


The Bath Comedy 


between of me ! Oh,” cried she, with a rigid 
shudder, “I feel myself defiled as with pitch, that 
these fingers should actually have touched sich a 
letter !” 

“For goodness sake,” moaned the lady from her 
pillows, “what are you talking about now?” 
“My lady,” said Megrim sepulchrally, “when that 
minx with her face muffled up in a hood, came 
and had the brazen boldness to ask for me this 
morning, saying she had some lace of your lady- 
ship’s from the menders, and that it was most 
particular and must be given into my hands alone, 
my mind misgave me. ’Twas like an angel’s 
warning. The more so as there isn’t a scrap of 
your ladyship’s lace as has been to the mender’s 
since we came here.” 

“Mercy, Megrim, how you do ramble on ! I can’t 
make head or tail cf your stupid story.” 

Even a dove will peck. 

“Ho, do I, my lady ! Can’t you indeed ? Perhaps 
your ladyship will understand better when I tell 
her, that that same bold thing had no lace at all — 
but a letter. ‘Give it to your mistress,’ says she, 
‘in secret, and for your life don’t let Sir Jasper 
see it.’ ” 

“Well, give it to me,” said Lady Standish, “and 
hold your tongue, and go and pack your trunks 


l 5S 


The Bath Comedy 

as soon as you like.” 

“Ho, my lady,” cried the incorruptible Megrim, 
with an acid laugh, “I hope I know my Christian 
duty better. I brought the letter to my master, 
according to the Voice of Conscience. And now,” 
she concluded, with a shrill titter, “I’ll go and 
pack my trunks.” 

Yet she paused, expecting to enjoy Lady S tan- 
dish’s outburst of terror and distress. There was 
no sign from the bed, however, not even a little 
gasp. And so Mistress Megrim was fain to 
depart to her virtuous trunks without even that 
parting solace. 

Meanwhile, with the pillow of her spotless con- 
science to rest upon, and deadened to fresh dis- 
turbances by the despairing reflection that noth- 
ing for the present could make matters much 
worse between her and her husband, Lady Stan- 
dish, without attempting to solve the fresh prob- 
lem, determinedly closed her weary eyes upon the 
troubles of the world and drifted into slumber 
again. 

jjc H* H 4 5 ^ ♦ H 4 

“I shall catch them red-handed,” said Sir Jasper. 
This time all doubt was over : in his hand lay the 
proof, crisp and fluttering. He read it again and 
again, with a kind of ghastly joy. Unaddressed, 


156 


The Bath Comedy 


unsealed, save by a foolish green wafer with a 
cupid on it, the document which Mistress Me- 
grim’s rigid sense of duty had delivered to him 
instead of to his guilty wife, was indited in the 
self-same dashing hand as marked the crumpled 
rag that even now burned him through his breast- 
pocket like a fly-blister. 

‘ ‘ I never get a wink of sleep, dreaming of you, dearest 
dear, so soon to be my own at last ! The chay shall be 
drawn by horses such as Phoebus himself, my darling, 
would have envied. And, so you fail me not, we shall 
soon be dashing through the night — a world of nothing 
but happiness and love before us. I could find it in my 
heart to bless the poor foolish individual who shall be 
nameless, since, had it not been for my lovely one’ 
weariness of him, she might never have turned to the 
arms of her own devoted, 

Red Curl! 

“ P. S. — I’ll have as good a team as there is in England 
(barring the one that shall bring us there), waiting for us 
at the Black Bear. Devizes. We ought to arrive before 
midnight, and there shall be a dainty trifle of supper 
for your Beautyship — while the nags are changed. Ah 
my dear what rapture!” 

Indescribable were the various expressions that 
crossed Sir Jasper’s countenance upon the peru- 
sal and re-perusal of this artless missive. Now 
he gnashed his teeth; now snorts of withering 
scorn were blown down the channels of his fine 


The Bath Comedy 157 

aquiline nose ; now smiles of the most deadly de- 
scription curled and parted luridly his full lips. 
“Ha, ha!” said Sir Jasper, “and perhaps the poor 
foolish individual may give you cause for some- 
thing less than blessings, Master Carrots ! And 
I think, madam, your beautyship may find at 
Devizes something harder to digest than that 
trifle of supper! Till then, patience!” 

He folded the letter, placed it beside its fellow, 
and once more, with a sort of bellow, he cried, 
“Patience !” 

“Well, Lydia?” said Mistress Bellairs. She had 
but just finished her chocolate, and looked like a 
rose among her pillows. 

“Well, madam,” said Lydia, still panting from 
her hurried quest, “ ’tis safe delivered. I gave 

it into Mistress Megrim’s own hands, and ” 

“And you can reckon,” said the lady, smiling at 
the amusing thought, “upon her bringing it 
straight to Sir Jasper?” 

“Ah, lud, ma’am, yes. I told the sour, ugly old 
cat, that if her master caught sight of it, Lady 
Standish would be ruined. You should have 
seen how she grabbed at it, ma’am!” 

“Lydia,” said her mistress, looking at her ad- 
miringly, “I question whether I’d have risked it 


The Bath Comedy 


i 5 8 

myself ; you’re a bold girl ! But there, if any- 
thing fail, know that rose-coloured pelisse re- 
mains hanging in my closet.” 

*‘Never fear, ma’am,” said Lydia, smiling quietly 
to herself, as she pulled her mistress’s long pink 
silk stocking over her hand, and turned it know- 
ingly from side to side, looking for invisible 
damage, “the pelisse is as good as mine already.” 
“But, think you, was Sir Jasper at home?” said 
Mistress Bellairs, after a few moments’ reflection. 
“I made sure of that,” said Lydia triumphantly, 
peeling off the stocking. “I thought it best to 
ge in by the mews, ma’am, and I heard that Sir 
Jasper had not left the house since that little — 
that little affair with the Bishop, you know, 
ma’am. But all the night, and all the morning, 
he kept William and Joseph (those are the 
grooms, ma’am) going backwards and forwards 
with challenges to the Bishop’s lodgings.” 

“Oh !” cried Kitty, and kicked her little toes un- 
der the silk counterpane with exquisite enjoyment, 
“and what does the Bishop answer, I wonder?” 
“Sends back the letter every time unopened, 
ma’am, with a fresh text written on the back of it. 
The text it is, William says, that drives Sir Jasper 
mad.” 

“Oh! oh! oh!” cried Mistress Kitty faintly, roll- 


1 56 


The Bath Comedy 

in g about her pillows. “Child, you’ll be the death 
of me! . . . Well, then, to business. You 

know what you are to do to-night ?” 

“No sooner are you gone to the Assembly Rooms 
this evening, ma’am, than I take a letter from you 
for Lady Standish, and this time deliver it myself 
to her own hand, and, if needs be, persuade her to 
follow your advice, ma’am.” 

■“Right, child ; thou shalt have the gold locket 

with the Turkey stones ” 

“Thank you, ma’am. Well, then I’m to scurry as 
fast as I can to the corner of Bond Street and 
Quiet Street, and watch you being carried off by 

the gentleman. And then ” 

“Be sure you wait till the chaise has well started.” 
“Yes, ma’am, of course ! When you’re safely on 
the London Road, I’ll go and give the alarm at 
the Assembly Rooms.” 

“Remember, you ask first for Lord Verney.” 
“Oh, ay, ma’am. ‘My mistress is carried off, is 
carried off ! Help, help, my lord !’ I’ll say. Oh, 
ma’am, I’ll screech it well out, trust me.” 

“Don’t forget,” said her mistress, whose mood 
became every moment merrier, “don’t forget to 
say that you heard the ravisher mention London, 
by Devizes.” 

“Well, ma’am,” said Lydia, “I thought of saying 


160 The Bath Comedy 

that he first flung you swooning upon the cush- 
ions of the chay ; then, stepping in himself, cried 
out to the coachman, with an horrible oath, ‘If 
you’re not in Devizes before twelve, I’ll flay you 
with your own whip, and then hang you with it 
to the shaft !’ ” 

“Aha, ha, Lydia,” laughed her mistress. “I see 
I must give you a gold chain to hang that locket 
upon. But pray, child,” she added warmly, “be 
careful not to overdo it.” 

Scene XVIII. 

T HE livelong day Lady Standish had not be- 
held the light of her lord’s countenance. 
Upon their last meeting, his behaviour to the 
Bishop having roused in her gentle bosom a feel- 
ing as nearly akin to resentment as it was capable 
of harbouring, she would not be (she had re- 
solved) the one to seek him first. She had, there- 
fore, passed the day in her own apartment in 
writing to her mother, and in practising her last 
song to the harp — a piece of audacity and inde- 
pendence which she expected would have goaded 
Sir Jasper into an instant interview with herself. 
When the dusk rose, however, and the candles 
were brought in by the round-eyed handmaid, 


The Bath Comedy 161 

whose ministrations replaced those of Megrim 
(the latter was still packing, and seemed like to 
take some weeks in the process), and the said 
round-eyed damsel immediately began to inform 
her mistress that Sir Jasper had set forth in his 
coach, Lady Standish’s small flame of courage 
began to flicker woefully. 

“Alone?” she asked, in white dismay. 

“Please, my lady, Mr. Bowles was driving, and 
there was Mr. Thomas behind, my lady.” 
“Pshaw, girl! Had Sir Jasper no friend with 
him ?” 

“Oh yes, my lady ; there was Mr. Stafford, a box 
of pistols, Mr. Toombs says, and a bag of 
swords.” 

“Heavens !” cried Lady Standish. “Again ! — and 
whither went they?” 

“Please, my lady, Mr. Toombs says they took the 
London Road.” 

Fain would the round-eyed maid have lingered 
and told more, but Lady Standish waved her 
hand faintly, and so dismissed her. 

An hour later, Lydia, brisk with importance, and 
sparkling with conscious power, found the much- 
tried soul sunk in a sort of apathetic weariness 
of misery. 

“Mistress Bellairs’ love, my lady, and will you 


i6i 


The Bath Comedy 


read this letter at once?” 

Lady Standish took the letter from the black- 
mittened hand. 

“Please, my lady, ’tis of the utmost importance,” 
said Lydia, “and I was to wait and see if I could 
not be of use to you.” 

Something magnetic in the girl’s lively tone gave 
impetus to Lady Standish’s suspended energies. 
She broke the seal. 

“ My sweet child,” wrote Mistress Kitty, “if yon want to 
know what has become of your husband, you will 
instantly take a chaise and start off for the Black Bear at 
Devizes. 

4 * Your true friend, 

“K. B. 

“ Postscriptum — Do not go alone. Get some old hag (if 
possible, Lady Maria Prideaux) to accompany you. You 
will find her in the Assembly Rooms. She’s as curious 
as our first mother — you can easily persuade her. This is 
good advice ! ” 

“I am much too ill,” cried Lady Standish, upon a 
moan. “Tell your mistress,” said she, looking 
vaguely in Lydia’s direction, “that indeed ’tis 
quite impossible I should do as she suggests.” 
“Very well, my lady,” said Lydia cheerfully. 
“I’m sure I shouldn’t trouble myself if I was you. 
Gentlemen must have their diversions, I always 


The Bath Comedy 163 

say. If ladies would but shut their eyes a little 
more, ’twould be for the peace of all parties. 
Indeed, my lady, though my mistress would be 
angry to hear me say so, I’d go to bed, for you 
look sorely tired, and Sir Jasper’ll be glad enough 
to come home bye-and-bye.” 

“Wretched girl,” cried Julia, and her eyes flashed, 
““what dost thou mean ?” 

"“La, now !” said Lydia, all innocence, “how my 
tongue do run away with me, to be sure ! Why, 
my lady, what can a poor servant-maid like me 
know of the goings on of gentles ? ’Tis but a few 
words of gossip here and there.” 

■“Oh, merciful heavens, what gossip mean you?” 
“My lady, have a sip of volatile, do! Oh, my 
mistress would be like to kill me if she knew 
what I’ve been saying! ‘Poor Julia,’ she cried 
when she got the news. ‘Poor Julia, my poor 
confiding Julia! Oh, the villain, the monster!’ ” 
“Good God, and whom did she refer to?” 

“Lud, madam, how can I tell? *It shall not be!’ 
cries my mistress, and down she sits and writes 
-ofif to you, as if for bare life.” 

Lady Standish, rising from her seat, rushed to 
the light, and with starting eyes and bristling 
hair began to read afresh her fond Kitty’s mis- 


sive. 


164 


The Bath Comedy 


“La, my lady,” cried the guileless Lydia, “you’re 
all of a shake ! I’d never be that upset about Sir 
Jasper. Why, if your la’ship’ll allow me to say 
so, all Bath knows how jealous he is of your 
la’ship; and, certain, that shows a husband’s af- 
fection.” 

“True,” cried Julia, “that’s true, girl!” 

“And as for those who say, my lady, that some 
men are so artful that they put on a deal of jeal- 
ousy to cover a deal of fickleness, I’d despise 
myself if I was to pay heed to such mean sus- 
piciousness.” 

“My cloak!” cried Lady Standish. “Megrim, 
Susan !” She flew to the hall. “My cloak, let a 
post-chaise be ordered immediately!” 

“If I may make so bold, my lady,” said Lydia, re- 
tiring gracefully with the conviction of a well- 
accomplished errand, “don’t forget to take Lady 
Maria with you, if you can. The gentlemen have 
such a way of turning tables on us poor women — 
at least,” said the damsel demurely, “so I’ve 
heard said. And ’tis a long lonely road, my 
lady!” 


The Bath Comedy 165 

Scene XIX. 


|^^ISTRESS BELLAIRS took her departure 

Attired in unusually sober colours, floating in 
an atmosphere of chastened, matronly dignity, 
she had shown herself this evening, thought Lord 
Verney, quite worthy to be his mother’s 
daughter-in-law. 

“Monstrous dull,” Lady Flyte called the pretty 
widow’s demeanour. 

Beyond a gavotte with Lord Verney, she had 
not danced, but sat for half-an-hour on 
the chair next to Lady Maria, who presented 
her with the vision of a shoulder-blade which 
had seen better days, and an impenetrability 
of hearing which baffled even Kitty’s undaunted 
energy. 

When Verney had tucked her up in her sedan, 
she insisted upon the young peer allowing her 
to proceed home unescorted. 

“Indeed,” said she, “I pray, nay, I order you. 
People talk so in this giddy place, and have 
you not your aged aunt to wait upon? I am 
sure,” said Mistress Kitty piously, “that your 
dear mother would wish it thus.” 


1 66 


The Bath Comedy 


He submitted. He had no doubt that his mother 
would indeed entirely concur with such senti- 
ments, and blessed his Kitty for her sweet reas- 
onableness. 

“Good-night, then,” she said, thrusting her pretty 
face out of the window with a very tender and 
gentle smile. 

“Good-night,” he replied, with his young, grace- 
fully-awkward bow. 

She fully expected to hear his footsteps pursue 
the chairman, for she had not been able to re- 
frain from throwing her utmost fascination into 
that parting look. But nothing broke the silence 
of the parade save the measured slouching tramp 
of the bearers. 

At once disappointed and relieved, she threw her- 
self back in her seat. 

“What, not a spark left,” said she, “of the fine 
flame ’twas so easy to kindle this morning! Tis 
the very type of the odious British husband. 
Let him be but sure of you, and the creature 
struts as confident of his mastery as the cock 
among his hens. Lord!” she shuddered, “what 
an escape I have had ! We women are apt to. 
fancy that very young men are like very young 
peas, the greener, the tenderer, the better ; 
whereas,” said the lady, with a sigh, “they are 


167 


The Bath Comedy 

but like young wine, crude where we look for 
strength, all head and no body, and vastly poor 
upon the palate.” 

She sighed again and closed her eyes, waiting 
for the moment of the impending catastrophe 
with a delicate composure. 

In truth, Mr. O’Hara conducted the performance 
with so much brio as to convince Mistress Bel- 
lairs that he had had previous experience of the 
kind. 

At the dark appointed corner the two muffled 
individuals who, each selecting his own aston- 
ished chairman, enlaced him with overwhelming 
brotherly affection, seemed such thorough-paced 
ruffians in the dim light, that Mistress Kitty 
found it quite natural to scream — and even had 
some difficulty in keeping her distressful note 
down to the pitch of necessary discretion. 

And her heart fluttered with a sensation of fear, 
convincing enough to produce quite a delight- 
ful illusion, when she found herself bodily lifted 
out of her nest and rapidly carried through the 
darkness in an irresistibly close and strong em- 
brace. 

“Oh, oh, oh !” cried the lady, in a modulated 

sequence of little shrieks. 

“Merciful heavens !” she thought to herself, with 


1 68 


The Bath Comedy 


a great thump of the heart, astonished at her 
ravisher’s silence, “what if it should be someone 
else after all ?” 

But the next instant the rich brogue of a tender 
whisper in her ear dispelled all doubt. 

“You’ve forgotten the scratches, my darling,” 
said O’Hara, as he laid her preciously upon the 
cushions of the chaise. 

Here Mr. Mahoney and his comrade — which lat- 
ter bore a curious resemblance in build and gait 
to one of the sporting Marquis’s own celebrated 
gladiators — came running up to take their seats. 
In leaped O’Hara — the coachman lifted his whip, 
and the team that Phoebus might have envied 
started up the length of Milsom Street in style. 

* * * * * * * 

The chairmen, drawing their breath with some 
difficulty after their spell of strangulation, 
stared in amazement at the clattering shadow 
as it retreated up the steep street; and then 
back, and in fresh amazement, at the yellow 
guinea which had been pressed, and now glinted, 
in their palm. 

Presently a simultaneous smile overspread their 
honest countenances. 

“A queer go,” said the first, easing and readjust- 
ing his necklace. “Lud, the little madam did 


The Bath Comedy 


1 66 


squeak !” 

“I’d let them all squeak at the same price,” said 
the other, pocketing his coin, and resuming his 
place in rear of the sedan. “But come, Bill, we 
must go report this ’orrible crime. Rabbit me! 
— what’s that?” 

A blood-curdling wail had risen out of the night, 
from his very elbow it seemed. It circled in 
frightful cadence, and died away in ghost-like 
fashion. 

“ ’T — ’tis but a sick cat, I hope,” stammered the 
first chairman, and dived for the chair-poles in 
marked hurry. 

“O — o — o — o,” moaned the voice, “oh, my mis- 
tress !” There was a flutter, a patter, and: 
“Merciful heavens, you wretches!” cried Mis- 
tress Bellairs’ devoted Abigail, emerging like a 
gust of wind from the blackest shadow of Bond 
Street and falling upon the nearest chairman 
with a well-aimed flap of her shawl, followed 
up by a couple of scratches. “Wretches, mon- 
sters, you’ve let my mistress be carried away! 
Oh heavens, my unhappy mistress !” cried Ly- 
dia, and rent the night with her cries. 

******* 

Mistress Kitty’s chair had no sooner left the 
precincts of the Assembly Rooms when my Lady 


170 The B ath Comedy 

Standish’s post-chaise came clattering round the 
corner. 

Lord Verney, who was just about to go in 
again, arrested by curiosity, turned to wonder 
at a visitor who arrived in so unwonted a con- 
veyance. Recognising Lady Standish he was 
somewhat abashed and somewhat disconcerted, 
but felt he could do no less than advance through 
the crowd of foot and chairmen and offer his 
‘hand. 

“Oh, pray, Lord Verney,” said she in a strenuous 
whisper, “conduct me to your aunt, for I have 
great need of her help and counsel. Take me 
to her at once,” said the poor lady, in ever- 
increasing agitation. 

They passed through the elegant throng, she 
unconscious alike of recognition, comment, or 
titter, he feeling to his boy’s marrow, the sensa- 
tion created by her travelling gear and distraught 
appearance. 

“Would I were back at Verney Hall,” thought 
he, and found that this wish had been long 
gathering in his heart. 

No need of an ear-trumpet for Lady Maria now. 
The dowager recovered her powers of hearing 
with almost miraculous celerity. 

“Oh, Lady Maria !” said Lady Standish, holding 


The Bath Comedy 17 1 

out both her hands. And incontinently she burst 
into tears. “Oh, Lady Maria, Sir Jasper has 
left me, I am in sad trouble! I’m told he has. 
gone to Devizes. I must follow him. You are 
my mother’s oldest friend ; will you give me the 
support of your company and protection?” 

There was quite a buzz in the interested circle. 
Lady Maria nodded round, charmed with the 
situation; bristling with delighted curiosity, she 
was more like Mistress Kitty’s cockatoo than 
ever. 

“Poor young thing, poor young thing,” she said,, 
patting Lady Standish’s hand ; “your mother’s 
oldest friend, quite so — quite right and proper 
to come to me. And so Sir Jasper’s left you ; so 
Sir Jasper’s gone; and with whom, my dear?” 
Lady Maria fondly believed that she spoke these 
last words in a gentle aside; but never had her 
sepulchral bass voice resounded so sonorously. 
Lady Standish’s faint cry of shocked disclaimer 
was, however, completely drowned in the fresh 
rumour, lacerated by shrill feminine shrieks,, 
which now arose in the vestibule of the Assembly 
Rooms and rapidly advanced. 

“My Lord Verney ! My mistress ! Where is my 
Lord Verney ?” wailed the distraught Lydia, who 
thoroughly enjoyed her role. 


72 


The Bath Comeciy 


A hundred voices took up the cry; the astound- 
ing news passed from group to group: “The 
pretty widow has been carried off!” “Mistress 
Bellairs has been abducted !” And then, in coun- 
ter clamour and antiphone : “And my Lady 
Standish is looking for Sir Jasper.” 

Meanwhile, before Lord Verney, dumb and suf- 
focating under a variety of emotions, Lydia, 
wringing her hands and with the most thrilling 
notes of tragic woe (as nearly copied from Mis- 
tress Susanna Cibber as she could remember), 
narrated her tristful tale. 

“He flung my unhappy mistress, swooning and 
shrieking, into the chaise. And ‘drive like the 
devil/ cries he in a voice of thunder to the 
coachman. Til flay you with your own whip 
and hang you to your own shaft/ says he, ‘if 
yo’re not in Devizes before midnight !’ ” 

“Devizes !” cried Lady Standish with a scream. 
Hanging on Lydia’s utterance, every word of 
which confirmed the awful suspicion that had en- 
tered her heart, she now could no longer doubt 
the real extent of her misfortune. 

“Oh, Lord Verney, save my mistress !” Lydia’s 
pipe dominated the universal chorus with pierc- 
ing iteration. 

And now Lady Maria’s bass struck in again. 


i73 


The Bath Comedy 

“What did I say?” cried she triumphantly. 
Nevvy, you’d better go to bed ! you’re well out 
of her. Julia, my dear, don’t faint, we can catch 
them at Devizes yet. Someone tell that wench 
to stop that screeching! Julia, come! You’ve 
got the chay, I understand. Fortunately, my 
house is near; we shall just call for Burrell and 
make him ride behind with his blunderbus. Child, 
if you faint I wash my hands of the whole af- 
fair. We’ll nip them, I tell you, if you’ll only 
brisk up.” 

“I won’t faint,” said Lady Standish, setting her 
teeth. 

ifs jjj 5js % % 

Lord Verney suddenly awoke to the fact that he 
had been grievously injured and that he was in 
a towering passion. Spluttering, he demanded 
vengeance of gods and men. Post-chaise, ho, 
and pistols, forthwith ! “My sword !” cried he, 
feeling for the blade which, however, accord- 
ing to the regulations enforced by the immortal 
Master of Bath Ceremonies, was absent from its 
natural post on his noble hip in this polite as- 
sembly. 

“Come with me,” cried Captain Spicer, clap- 
ping his patron on the shoulder in a burst of 
excitement. “I’ll stand to you, of course, lad ! 


174 


The Bath Comedy 


You’ll want a witness. Gad!” exclaimed the 
■amiable Captain, “we’ll have Sir Jasper’s liver 
on the spit before crow of cock !” 

Scene XX. 

HE side-rays of the chaise-lamps played on 
the widow’s soft, saucy face, threw be- 
guiling shadows under her eyes, and fleeting 
dimples round those lips that seemed perpetually 
to invite kisses. 

Cosily nestling in the corner of the carriage, her 
head in its black silk hood tilted back against the 
cushions, in the flickering uncertain gleam, there 
was something almost babyish in her whole ap- 
pearance ; something babyish, too, in her attitude 
of perfect confidence and enjoyment. 

Denis O’Hara, with one arm extended above her 
head, his hand resting open on the panel, the 
other hand still clasping the handle of the door, 
gazed upon the woman who had placed herself 
so completely in his power, and felt smitten to 
the heart of him with a tenderness that was well- 
nigh pain. Hitherto his glib tongue had never 
faltered with a woman without his lips being 
ready to fill the pause with a suitable caress. But 
not so to-day. 


The Bath Comedy 175 

What’s come to me at all?” said he to himself, 
as, frightened by the very strength of his own 
passion, he could find no word at once ardent and 
respectful enough in which to speak it. And, in- 
deed, “What had come to him?” was what Mis- 
tress Kitty was thinking about the same time. 
“And what may his arm be doing over my head ?” 
she wondered. 

“How beautiful you are !” babbled the Irishman 
at last. 

Mistress Bellairs suddenly sat up with an angry 
.start. It was as if she had been stung. 
“Heavens !” cried she, thrusting her little fore- 
fingers into her ears. “Mr. O’Hara, if you say 
that again, I shall jump out of the chay.” 

Her eyes flashed ; she looked capable of fulfilling 
her threat upon the spot. 

“Me darling heart,” said he, and had perforce to 
lay his hands upon her to keep her still. “Sure 
what else can I say to you, with my eyes upon 
your angel face?” 

Apparently the lady’s ears were not so completely 
stopped but that such words could penetrate. 

’Tis monstrous,” said she in hot indignation, 
*“that I should go to all this trouble to escape from 
the bleating of that everlasting refrain, and have 
it buzzed at me,” she waxed incoherent under the 


176 


The Bath Comedy 


sense of her injuries, “thus at the very outset !” 
“My dear love,” said he, humbly, capturing the 
angry, gesticulating hand, “sure me heart’s so 
full that it’s just choking me.” 

She felt him tremble beside her as he spoke. 
Now the trembling lover was not of those that 
entered into Mistress Kitty’s scheme of exis- 
tence. She had, perhaps, reckoned, when plan- 
ning her escapade, upon being made to tremble a 
little herself. She had certainly reckoned upon 
a journey this evening that should be among the 
most memorable in the annals of her impressions. 
O’Hara bashful! O’Hara tongue-tied! O’Hara 
with cold fingers that hardly dared to touch hers ! 
O’Hara, the gay rattler, with constrained lips ! 
This was an O’Hara whose existence she had not 
dreamed of, and for whose acquaintance, to say 
the truth, she had small relish. 

“What has come to you?” she cried aloud, with 
another burst of petulance. 

“Faith,” said he, “and I hardly know myself, 
Kitty darling. Oh, Kitty,” said he, “ ’tis vastly 
well to laugh at love, and play at love ; but when 
love comes in earnest it takes a man as it were by 
the throat, and it’s no joke then.” 

“So I see,” said she, with some dryness. 
O’Hara clenched his hand and drew a laboured 


The Bath Comedy 


177 


breath. 

******* 

Straining, slipping now and again, breaking into 
spurts of trot, to fall into enforced walking pace 
once more, the gallant team had dragged the 
chaise to the summit of the great rise at a speed 
quite unprecedented, yet comparatively slow. 
Now the way lay down-hill. The coachman 
waved his whip. Bounding along the fair road 
the wheels hummed ; the night-wind fanned them 
through the half-opened window, set Mistress 
Kitty’s laces flapping on her bosom, and a stray 
curl of Mr. O’Hara’s dancing on his pale fore- 
head. 

The exhilaration of the rapid flight, the crack of 
the whip, the mad rhythm of the hoofs, the witch- 
ery of the night hour, the risks of the situation, 
the very madness of the whole enterprise, all 
combined to set the widow’s gay blood delight- 
fully astir, mounting to her light brain like 
sparkling wine. 

What! were all the accessories of the play to be 
so perfect, and was the chief character to prove 
such a lamentable failure in his part? What! 
was she, Kitty Bellairs, to be carried off by the 
most notorious rake in Bath, only to find him 
as awkward, as dumb, as embarrassed with the 


i 7 8 


The Bath Comedy 


incomparable situation as the veriest greenhorn? 
“It shall not, and it cannot be,” said she to her- 
self. And thereupon she changed her tactics. 

“Why,” said she aloud, with' the cooing note 
of her most melting mood, “I protest one would 
think, sir, that you were afraid of me.” 
“Aye, Kitty,” said he, simply; “and so I am.” 
“Oh, fie!” she laughed. “And how have I 
alarmed you ? Think of me,” said she, and leaned 
her face towards him with a smile of archest wit, 
“not as a stranger, but as a sisther, as a dear, dear 
cousin.” 

His eye flamed back at her. Her merry mood 
was as incongruous to his sudden, storm-serious 
growth of passion as the gay lilt of a tambourine 
might be to a solemn chant. 

“I think of you,” he said, and there was a deep 
thrill in his voice, “as my wife that is to be.” 

And so saying he fell upon his knees in the nar- 
row space, and tenderly kissed a fold of her lace, 
as one, from the knowledge of his own fire, afraid 
of a nearer touch. 

The word “wife” had never a pleasing sound in 
the lovely widow’s ears. From neither the past 
nor the future did it evoke for her an attractive 
picture. 

Coming from those lips, by which it was the very 


i79 


The Bath Comedy 

last name she desired to hear herself called, it 
aroused in her as pretty a fit of fury as ever she 
had indulged in. 

"Now, indeed, is the murder out!” she cried. 
"Oh, you men are all alike. As lovers — all fire, 
capsicums, Indian suns! Bottles of Sillery al- 
ways bursting! Torrents not to be stemmed. 
. . . But, lo ! you let the lover once fancy 

himself the husband, let the vision of the coveted 
mistress but merge into the prospect of the se- 
cured wife. . . Merciful heavens, what a 

change ! For fire we have ice ; for the red, biting 
capsicum, the green, cool cucumber; for joyous, 
foaming Sillery, the smallest ale ; small ale — nay, 
toast and water!” cried Mistress Kitty, lashing 
herself to finer frenzy. "And if the mere sense 
of your security thus transforms the lover in 
you, what a pleasing prospect, indeed, lies before 
the wedded wife ! No, thank you, sir,” said the 
lady, and pushed the petrified O’Hara with an 
angry foot, "I have had one wintry, toast-and- 
water husband, and that shall be enough for my 
lifetime. Thank God, it is not too late yet !” she 
fumed. "I am not yet, sir, Mistress O’Hara.” 
And in the very midst of her indignation : "This 
will,” she thought, "simplify the parting at 
Devizes.” But no whit was her wrath thereby 


180 The Bath Comedy 

abated, that the fool should have spoiled her 
pretty ride. 

For a moment, after the angry music of her voice 
had ceased to ring, there was a breathless silence, 
broken only by the straining progress of horses 
and chaise up the sides of another hill. Then 
O’Hara broke forth into a sort of roar of 
wounded tenderness, passion, and ire. Flinging 
himself back upon his seat, he seized her wrist 
in a grip, fierce, yet still gentle under its fierce- 
ness. 

“How dare ye!” cried the man, “how dare ye 
doubt my love. Sure the flames of hell are cold 
compared to me this minute. May my tongue 
wither in my mouth, may it be cut out of my 
jaws and never speak a word of sense again, may 
I be struck dead at your feet, Kitty, for the rest 
of my life, if it’s not gospel truth ! Listen to my 
heart,” he cried, with yet greater vehemence, 
pressing her captive hand against his breast, 
isn’t it Kitty , Kitty, Kitty, . . . that it’s say- 

ing ? Sure it’s nothing but a bell, and your name 
is the clapper in it! . . . And you to be 

railing at me because it’s so much I have to say 
that never a word can I bring out ! Oh,” pursued 
Mr. O’Hara, waxing louder and more voluble 
still, “sure what could I say, with my heart in 


The Bath Comedy 1 8 1 

my mouth stopping the way? Look at it, you 
cruel woman; isn’t it all yours, and aren’t you 
sticking pins into it for sheer devilment, this 
minute ? God forgive me, that I should say such 
a thing of an angel. Look at it, now Kitty ! Is 
that the heart of a cucumber? ... If you 
had said a love-apple itself. . . Och, indeed, 

it’s the real cool cucumber I am, and it’s toast and 
water that’s running through my veins like fire ! 
. . . Laugh, madam, laugh, it’s a grand joke 

entirely! make a pin-cushion of the cucumber! 
See, now, is that small ale that bursts from the 
wounds? Upon my soul,” he cried, arrived at 
the height of his tempest, “I have a mind to show 
you the colour of it !” 

He reached violently towards the back seat for 
his sword as he spoke, and Mistress Bellairs, sud- 
denly arrested in her delighted paroxysm, was 
sufficiently convinced of the strength of his feel- 
ings to stop him with clinging hands and clam- 
ouring little notes of terror. 

“O’Hara ! madman ! — for God’s sake, Denis !” 
“Ah !” cried he. “It’s not hot enough I was for 
ye. It’s the cold husband you’re afraid of. Ah, 
Kitty, you’ve stirred the sleeping dog, you 
mustn’t complain now if you can’t put out the 
fire.” 


182 


The Bath Comedy 


So saying, he turned and clasped her in an em- 
brace that left her scarcely breath to scream, had 
she so wished, and had indeed the kisses which 
he rained upon her lips allowed her space in 
which to place a protest. 

Her light soul, her easy shallow nature, was car- 
ried as it were off its feet in the whirlwind of a 
passion the mere existence of which, with all 
her experience, she had never even guessed. To 
say the truth, so much as she had deemed him 
vastly too cold, so now she found him vastly too 
hot. She was a woman of niceties, an epicure in 
life and love, and nothing met with her favour 
but the delicate happy mean. This was a revela- 
tion, with a warning. 

“Mr. O’Hara,” she grasped, at length released,- 
fluttering like a ruffled dove, all in anger and fear, 
“such treatment! For a gentleman, sir, you 
strangely forget yourself.” She laid her hand 
on the window strap. “Not a word, sir, or I will 
instantly give the order to turn back.” 

“Oh,” cried the unhappy lover, and tore at his 
hair with desperate fingers, filling the ambient 
air with flakes of powder which shone silvery in 
the moonlight. “You drove me to it. Ah, don’t 
be frightened of me, my darling; that hurts me 
the worst of all. I’m quiet now, Kitty.” 


The Bath Comedy 183 

His labouring breath hissed between his words, 
and his satin coat creaked under each quiver- 
ing muscle. 

“I’m as quiet as a lamb,” said he; “sure a baby 
might put its head in my jaws — the devil’s gone 
out of me, Kitty.” 

‘Tm glad to hear it, sir,” said she, unappeased. 
She sat, swelling with ruffled plumes, looking 
out of the window, and biting her lips. 

“A moon, too,” she thought, and the tears al- 
most started to her eyes, for the vexation of the 
wasted opportunity and the complete failure of a 
scene so excellently staged. “How wise, oh, 
how wise I was, to have secured my exit at De- 
vizes !” 

“I frightened her,” thought O’Hara; and in the 
manly heart of him he lamented his innate mascu- 
line brutality and formed the most delicate chiv- 
alrous plans for the right cherishing in the future 
of the dear lady who had confided herself to him. 


Scene XXL 

N the whilte moonlight Sir Jasper Standish 
paced up and down the cobble-stoned yard 
with as monotonous a restlessness as if he had 


184 


The Bath Comedy 


been hired this night to act the living sign at the 
Bear Inn , Devizes. 

Each time he passed the low open window of 
the inn parlour, in which sat Mr. Stafford by the 
dim yellow light of two long-tongued tallow can- 
dles, the baronet would pause a moment to ex- 
change from without a few dismal words with 
his friend. The latter, puffing at a long clay 
pipe, endeavoured in the intervals to while away 
the heavy minutes in the perusal of some tome 
out of mine host’s library — a unique collection 
and celebrated on the Bath Road. 

“Tom Stafford,” said Sir Jasper, for the twen- 
tieth time, “how goes the hour?” 

“Damned slowly, friend,” said Stafford, consult- 
ing with a yawn the most exact of three watches 
at his fob. “To be precise, ’tis two minutes and 
one-third since I told you that it wanted a 
quarter of midnight.” 

Sir Jasper fell once more to his ursine perambu- 
lation, and Stafford, yawning again, flicked 
over a page. He had not reached the bottom 
of it, however, before Sir Jasper’s form returned 
between him and the moonlight. 

“What,” said the injured husband, “what if they 
should have taken another road?” 

“Then,” cried Stafford, closing his book with a 


The Bath Comedy 185 

snap between both his palms, tossing it on to 
the table and stretching himself desperately, "1 
shall only have to fight you myself, for this most 
insufferably dull evening that you have made 
me spend, when I was due at more than one ren- 
dezvous, and had promised pretty Bellairs the 
first minuet. 

“It shall be pistols/’ said Sir Jasper, following 
his own thoughts with a sort of gloomy lust. 
“Pistols, Tom. For either he or I shall breathe 
our last to-night.” 

“Pistols with all my heart,” said Stafford, stop- 
ping his pipe with his little finger. “Only do, 
like a good fellow, make up your mind — just for 
the sake of variety. I think the last time we con- 
sidered the matter, we had decided for this” — 
describing a neat thrust at Sir Jasper’s waistcoat 
through the window with the long stem of his 
churchwarden. 

“There’s more blood about it, Jasper,” he sug- 
gested critically. 

“True,” murmured the other, again all indecis- 
ion. “But pistols at five paces ” 

“Well — yes, there’s a charm about five paces, I 
admit,” returned the second with some weari- 
ness, dropping back again into his chair. “And 
we can reload, you know.” 


1 86 


The Bath Comedy 


“If I fall,” said Sir Jasper, with the emotion 
which generally overtakes a man who contem- 
plates a tragic contingency to himself, “be gentle 
with her. She has sinned, but she was very dear 
to me.” 

“She’ll make a deuced elegant widow,” said Staf- 
ford, musingly, after a little pause, during which 
he had conjured up Lady Standish’s especial 
points with the judgment of a true connoisseur. 
“You must conduct her back to her home,” 
gulped Sir Jasper, a minute later, slowly thrust- 
ing in his head again. “Alack, would that I 
had never fetched her thence. . . . Had you 

but seen her, when I wooed and won her, Tom. 
A country flower, all innocence, a wild rose. . . . 
And now, deceitful, double-faced !” 

“ ’Tis the way of the wild rose,” said Stafford, 
philosophically. “Let you but transplant it from 
the native hedgerow, and before next season it 
grows double.” 

Here the speaker, who was always ready with 
a generous appreciation of his own conceits, 
threw his head back and laughed consumedly, 
while Sir Jasper uttered some sounds between a 
growl and a groan. 

The volatile second in waiting wiped his eyes. 
“Go to, man,” cried he, turning with sudden 


i87 


The Bath Comedy 

irascibility upon his friend, “for pity’s sake take 
that lugubrious countenance of thine out of my 
sight. What the devil I ever saw in thee, Jas- 
per, to make a friend of, passes my comprehen- 
sion: for, of all things, I love a fellow with a 
spark of wit. And thou, lad, lackest the saving 
grace of humour so wofully, that, in truth, I fear 
— well — thou art in a parlous state : I fear dam- 
nation waits thee, for ’tis incurable. What! in 
God’s name cannot a man lose a throw in the 
game of happiness and yet laugh? Cannot a 
husbandman detect a poacher on his land and not 
laugh as he sets the gin ? Why,” cried Mr. Staf- 
ford warming in his thesis, and clambering 
lightly out of the window to seat himself on the 
outer sill, “strike me ugly ! shall not a gentle- 
man be ever ready to meet his fate with a smile ? 
I vow I’ve never yet seen Death’s head grin at 
me, but I’ve given him the grin back — split 
me !” 

strained ear, “D’ye hear?” 

“Pooh !” said Mr. Stafford, “only the wind in the 
tree.” 

“Nay,” cried Sir Jasper; “hush, man, listen.” 

An unmistakeable rumbling grew upon the still 
night air — a confused medley of sounds which 
gradually unravelled themselves upon their lis- 


1 8 8 


The Bath Comedy 


tening ears. It was the rhythmical striking of 
many hoofs, the roll of wheels, the crack of a 
merciless whip. 

“Faith and faith,” cried Stafford, pleasantly ex- 
hilarated, “I believe you’re right, Jasper; here 
they come !” 

The moon-light swam blood-red before Sir Jas- 
per’s flaming eye. “Pistols or swords?” queried 
he again of himself, and grasped his hilt as the 
nearest relief, pending the decisive moment. 

Out slouched a couple of sleepy ostlers, as Master 
Lawrence, mine host, rang the stable bell. 

Betty, the maid, threw a couple of logs on the 
fire while the dame in the bar, waking from her 
snooze, demanded the kettle, selected some lem- 
ons, and ordered candlesticks and dips with reck- 
less prodigality. 

****** * 

Mistress Kitty, peering out of the carriage win- 
dow, her shoulder still turned upon the unhappy 
and unforgiven swain, hailed the twinkling lights 
of the Bear Inn with lively eyes. 

While the chaise described an irreproachable 
curve round the yard, her quick glance had em- 
braced every element of the scene. Sir Jasper’s 
bulky figure, with folded arms, was leaning 
against the post of the inn door, awaiting her 


i89 


The Bath Comedy 

approach — retribution personified — capriciously 
illumined by the orange rays of the landlord’s 
lantern. Out in the moonlight, shining in his 
pearl gray satin and powdered head, all silver 
from crest to shoe-buckle, like the prince of fairy 
lore, sat Stafford on his window-ledge, as gal- 
lant a picture to a woman’s eye, the widow had 
time to think, as one could wish to see on such a 
night. 

“Oh,” she thought, “how we are going to enjoy 
ourselves at last !” 

And being too true an artist to consider her mere 
personal convenience upon a question of effect, 
she resolved to defer the crisis to the ripe mo- 
ment, no matter at what cost. Accordingly, even 
as O’Hara cried out, in tones of surprise and dis- 
gust: “Thunder and turf! my darling, if there 
isn’t now that blethering ox, Sir Jasper!” Mis- 
tress Kitty instantly covered her face with her 
lace, and swooned away on the Irishman’s breast. 
Sir Jasper charged the coach door. “Blether- 
ing ox!” he bellowed. “I’ll teach you, sir, what 

I am ! I’ll teach that woman — I’ll, I’ll ” 

Here Stafford sprang lightly to the rescue. 

“For Heaven’s sake,” said he, “think of our 
names as gentlemen ; let it be swords or pis- 
tols, Jasper, or swords and pistols, if you like, but 


190 The Bath Comedy 

not fistycuffs and collaring. Be quiet, Jasper! 
And you, sir,” said he to O’Hara, as sternly as 
he could for the tripping of his laughter, “hav- 
ing done your best to add that to a gentleman’s 
head which shall make his hats sit awry for the' 
remainder of his days, do you think it generous 
to give his condition so precise a name?” 

“O hush,” cried O’Hara, in too deep distress to 
pay attention either to abuse or banter, “give 
me room, gentlemen, for God’s sake. Don’t 
you see the lady has fainted ?” 

With infinite precaution and tenderness he 
^emerged from the chay with his burden, elbowing 
from his path on one side the curious and offi- 
cious landlord, on the other the struggling hus- 
band. 

“Oh, what have I done at all!” cried the dis- 
tracted lover, as the inertness of the weight in 
his arms began to fill him with apprehension for 
his dear. “Sure, alanna, there’s nothing to be 
afraid of! Sure, am I not here? Och, me dar- 
ling, if ” 

But here Sir Jasper escaped from his friend’s 
■control. “I’ll not stand it,” cried he. “ ’Tis 
more than flesh and blood can endure. Give her 
up to me, sir. How dare you hold her?” He 
fell upon O’Hara in the rear and seized him, 


The Bath Comedy 191 

throttling, round the neck. 

“I’ll dare you in a minute, ye mad divil !” yelled 
O’Hara, in a fury, no whit less violent than that 
of his assailant. Thus cried he, and choked. 

In the scuffle they had reached the parlour. 

“Oh, Jasper, Jasper, in the name of decency!” 
protested Stafford, vainly endeavouring to pluck 
the baronet from off the Irishman’s back. “And 
you, Denis lad, I entreat of you to cease to pro- 
voke him. Zooks, my boy, remember he has 
some prior claim — what shall I say? some little 
vested interest ” 

“I’ll stuff him with his own red hair!” assever- 
ated Sir Jasper, foaming at the mouth as, under 
a savage push from O’Hara’s elbow he fell back, 
staggering, into Stafford’s power. 

“Prior claims — vested interest is it! Some of 
you will have to swallow those words before I’ll 
be got to swallow anything here,” swore Denis 
O’Hara, almost gaily, in the exultation of his 
Celtic rage. “Sure, ’tis mad, I know ye are, 
lepping mad, Sir Jasper, but ought you not to 
be ashamed of yourself before the lady? She’s 
quivering with the fright. . . . Lie here, my 

angel,” said he, vibrating from the loudest note 
of defiance to the tenderest cooing. “Lie here; 
there’s not a ha’porth to frighten ye, were there 


192 


The Bath Comedy 


fifty such twopenny old crazy weather-cocks 
crowing at you !” 

So saying, he deposited his burthen tenderly in 
the leather-winged arm-chair by the fire-place, 
and turned with a buoyant step towards Sir 
Jasper. 

“Come out,” said he, “come out, sir. Sure, leave 
him alone, Tom, ’tis the only way to quiet him 
at all. Sure, after our little game the other night, 
wasn’t he that dove-like poor fellow, a child 
might have milked him?” 

The quivering form in the chair here emitted 
“Hark — hark!” cried Sir Jasper, pricking his 
a scale of hysterical little notes that seemed 
wrung from her by the most irrepressible emo- 
tion. And : 

“Oh, oh,” exclaimed Mr. Stafford, unable, in 
the midst of his laughter, to retain any further 
grip upon his friend. 

“My darling,” once more began the solicitous 
O’Hara, turning his head round towards the 
arm-chair, but 

“Judas !” hissed Sir Jasper, and furiously inter- 
posed his bulk between the Irishman and his 
intention. 

“Faith,” cried Stafford. “Can’t you cover that 
head of yours somehow, O’Hara? I vow the 


The Bath Comedy 193 

very sight of it is still the red rag to the bull. 

. . . The bull, 'aha r 

“Ha! ha! ha!” broke this time, uncontrolled, 
the merriment from the chair. 

The three men were struck into silence and im- 
mobility. 

Then, on tip toe, Mr. Stafford approached and 
peeped round the wing of the arm-chair. He 
looked, and seemed blasted with astonishment; 
looked again and made the rafters ring with his 
sonorous laugh, till the apprehensive landlord in 
the passage and the trembling dame in the bar 
were comforted and reassured by the genial 
sound. 

The high feminine trill of Mistress Kitty’s mu- 
sical mirth rang in sweetly with his. 

“Oh, Kitty Bellairs, Kitty Bellairs !” gasped Mr. 
Stafford, shook his finger at her, felt blindly for 
a support, and rolled up against Sir Jasper. 

The baronet straightway fell into an opportunely 
adjacent chair and there remained — his legs ex- 
tended with compass stiffness, his eyes starting 
with truly bovine bewilderment — staring at the 
rosy visage, the plump little figure that now 
emerged from the ingle-nook. 

“Oh dear, oh dear!” faintly murmured Staf- 
ford, and with a fresh breath he was off again. 


194 


The Bath Comedy 


“Aha ha ha ! for an ox, my Jasper, thou hast 
started on a lovely wild goose chase — as friend 
O’Hara might say.” While : 

“Mercy on us!” rippled the lady. “I protest, 
’tis the drollest scene. Oh, Sir Jasper, Sir Jasper, 
see what jealousy may bring a man to!” 

“Musha, it’s neither head nor tail I can make 
of the game,” said O’Hara, “but sure it’s like an 
angel choir to hear you laugh again, me dar- 
ling.” 

The guileless gentleman approached his mis- 
tress as he spoke, and prepared to encircle her 
waist. But with a sudden sharpness she whisked 
herself from his touch. 

“Pray, sir,” she said, “remember how we stand 
to each other ! If I laugh ’tis with relief to know 
myself safe.” 

“Safe?” he echoed with sudden awful misgiv- 
ing. 

“Aye,” said she, and spoke more tartly for the 
remorseful smiting of her own heart, as she 
marked the change in his face. “You would 
seem to forget, sir, that you have carried me off 
by violence — treacherously seized me with your 
hired ruffians.” Her voice grew ever shriller, 
as certain rumours which her expectant ears had 
already caught approaching, now grew quite un- 


The Bath Comedy 


*95 


mistakeable without, and hasty steps resounded 
in the passage. Oh, Mr. O’Hara, you have 
cruelly used me !” cried the lady. “Oh, Sir Jas- 
per, oh, Mr. Stafford, from what a fate has your 
most unexpected presence here to-night thus op- 
portunely saved me !” 

At this point she looked up and gave a scream 
of most intense astonishment, for there, in the 
doorway, stood my Lord Verney; and, over his 
shoulder, peered the white face of Captain Spicer 
all puckered up with curiosity. 


Scene XXII. 

O ’HARA drew himself up. He had grown all 
at once exceedingly still. 

Mr. Stafford, gradually recovering from his 
paroxysms, had begun to bestow some intelligent 
interest upon the scene. There was a mist of 
doubt in his eyes as he gazed from the victimised, 
but very lively, lady to her crestfallen “violent 
abductor,” and then to the gloomy countenance of 
the new-comer on the threshold. There seemed 
to be, it struck him, a prodigious deliberation in 
Mistress Kitty’s cry and start of surprise. 

"“What is my pretty Bellairs up to now? Well, 


196 The Bath Comedy 

poor Irish Denis with all his wits is no match for 
her anyhow, and, faith, she knows it,” thought he. 
Aloud he said, with great placidity : “Fie, fie, this 
is shocking to hear !” and sat, the good-humoured 
Chorus to the Comedy, on the edge of the table, 
waiting for the development of the next scene. 
Sir Jasper, wiping a beaded brow and still star- 
ing, as if by the sheer fixing of his bloodshot eye 
he could turn these disappointing puppets into the 
proper objects of his vengeance, was quite unable 
to follow any current but the muddy whirl of his 
own thoughts. 

Lord Verney alone it was, therefore, who rose at 
all to Mistress Kitty’s situation. 

“Are you the scoundrel, then,” said he, marching 
upon O’Hara, “who dared to lay hands upon an 
unprotected lady in the very streets of Bath ?” 
“Monstrous!” remarked Captain Spicer behind 
him. Then jogging his patron’s elbow, “ ’Twas 
well spoke, Verney, man. At him again, there’s 
blood in this.” 

Mr. O’Hara looked steadily at Lord Verney, 
glancing contemptuously at Captain Spicer, and 
then with long, full searching at the beguiling 
widow. 

She thought to scent danger to herself in the 
air ; and, woman-like, she seized unscrupulously 


i 9 7 


The Bath Comedy 

upon the sharpest weapon in her armoury. 
'‘Perhaps,” she said, with an angry, scornful 
laugh, “Mr. O’Hara will now deny that he and 
his servants attacked my chairman in the dark, 
threw me, screaming with terror, into his car- 
riage, and that his intention was avowedly to 
wed me by force in London to-morrow.” 

All eyes were fixed on the Irishman, and silence 
waited upon his reply. He had grown so pale 
that his red head seemed to flame by contrast. He 
made a low bow. 

“No, Kitty,” said he, in a very gentle voice, “I 
deny nothing.” Then sweeping the company 
with a haughty glance. “This lady,” said he, 
“has spoken truth ; as for me, I am ready to meet 
the consequences of my conduct.” 

His eyes finally rested once more on Lord Verney. 
The latter grew white and then scarlet; while 
Spicer whispered and again jogged. 

“Of course,” blustered the youth, and wished that 
he had the curious digestion of his contempor- 
aries, that his stomach did not so squeamishly 
rebel at the prospect of a dose of steel, “of course, 

sir, you must be aware ” 

“It shall be swords,” interrupted the irrepressible 
Spicer ; “and gad, sir, what my noble friend will 
have left of your body I will myself make mince 


198 


The Bath Comedy 


of this night! Aye, sir,” said the captain, as- 
tonished at his own valour, slapping his bony 
chest and beginning to squint as was his wont 
under excitement. “I will fight you myself, sir.” 
“Fight you!” exclaimed O’Hara, suddenly stung 
into magnificent contempt. “Fight you , sir?” he 
ran a withering eye over the grasshopper anat- 
omy of the toady as he spoke, “you, sir, the writer 
of that dirty note this morning, bidding me apolo- 
gise — apologoise !” cried Denis, with his most lus- 
cious brogue, “to the man, Sir Jasper there, for 
having insulted you on the subject of your mis- 
erable mealy head — fight you, sir? Sure, rather 
than fight you,” said Mr. O’Hara, searching for 
the most emphatic asseveration conceivable, “I’d 
never fight again for the rest of my life ! But 
I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you : next time you 
thrust that ugly face of yours within reach of 
me arm, O’ll pull your nose till it’s as long as 
your tongue, and as slender as yer courage, 
damme !” 

“Oh, gad ! what a low scoundrel,” murmured 
Captain Spicer, withdrawing quickly several 
paces, and with an intensified cast in his eye ; “ ’tis 
positive unfit for a gentleman to speak to him.” 
“Now, my lord,” said O’Hara, resuming his easy 
dignity. 


l 99 


The Bath Comedy 

But that her comedy should drift into tragedy 
was none of Mistress Kitty’s intentions. Briskly 
stepping between the laboriously pugnacious Ver- 
ney and the poor Irishman whose eye (for all 
his present composure) shone with the lust of 
the fray, she thus addressed them collectively 
and in turn : 

“Shame, shame, gentlemen, I protest ! It is not 
enough that a poor woman’s heart should be set 
a-fluttering by over much love, must it now go 
pit-a-pat again for over much hate? My Lord 
Verney, think of your mother. Think of her, of 
whose declining years you are the sole prop and 
joy ; recall to mind those principles of high mor- 
ality, of noble Christian duty, which that paragon 
of women so sedulously inculcated in you !” 
Her voice quivered on the faintest note of mock- 
ery. “Oh, what would that worthy lady’s feel- 
ings be, were you to be brought home to her — a 
corse ! — What, ah what indeed ! would your feel- 
ings be if, by some accident,” here she shot invol- 
untarily what was almost the suspicion of a wink 
in the direction of O’Hara, “you had to answer 
for the life of a fellow-creature before to-mor- 
row’s dawn? Why, you could never open your 
Bible again without feeling in your bosom the 
throbbing heart of a Cain.” She stopped to draw 


200 


The Bath Comedy 


breath. 

Mr. Stafford, one delighted grin, slid the 
whole length of the table on which he sat with 
dangling legs, to get a fuller view of the saucy 
face: “Incomparable Bellairs,” he murmured to 
himself with keen appreciation. And : “So, ho, 
my noble friend,” thought he, as he shot a glance 
at the solemn Verney, “now do I know what 
has closed to you forever the gates of Paradise.” 
“And you, Mr. O’Hara,” resumed the lady, turn- 
ing her eye, full of indefinable and entrancing 
subtleties upon the honest gentleman, “would 
you have me forgive you this night’s work? Do 
not, then, do not force this impetuous young man 
to an unnecessary quarrel. Allow him to with- 
draw his challenge. Do that in atonement, sir,” 
said she, with much severity of accent; but her 
eye said sweetly enough, “Do that for me/' and 
gave further promise of unutterable reward. 
“Madam,” said O’Hara, glancing away as if the 
sight of her beauty were now more pain than 
pleasure to him, “ ’tis for my Lord Verney to 
speak ; I am entirely at his orders. I understand,” 
and here, for all his chivalrousness, he could not 
refrain him from a point of satire, “I understand, 
ma’am, that you have given him the right to es- 
pouse your quarrels.” 


201 


The Bath Comedy 

“‘Most certainly,” said the crimson Verney, who 
had been monstrously uneasy during his lady’s 
sermon, not only because every word of it hit 
some tender point of his abnormally developed 
conscience, but also because of an indefinable sen- 
sation that he was being held up to ridicule, 
“most certainly, sir, it is as Mistress Bellairs’ fu- 
ture husband that I find it incumbent — that I find 

myself forced, reluctantly — no, I mean ” here 

he floundered and looked round for Spicer, who, 
however, was ostentatiously turning his back 
upon the proceedings and gazing at the moon. 
“‘In fact,” resumed the poor youth, falling back 
on his own unguided wits, “I have no alternative 
but to demand satisfaction for an attempt on the 
honour of the future Lady Verney.” 

“‘Mercy on us !” cried Mistress Kitty, with a shrill 
indignant little scream. “Oh, fie, my lord, who 
would have deemed you so bloodthirsty? Be- 
fore heaven,” she cried piously, glancing at the 
raftered ceiling, “before heaven, it would be the 
death of me, were there to be quarrelling, strife, 
contention for me — for me! Who am I?” she 
said with the most angelic humility, “that two 
such gallant gentlemen should stake their lives 
for me ? Rather,” said she, “will I give you back 
your word, my lord. Indeed,” this with a noble 


202 


The Bath Comedy 


clearly shown me my duty. Hush, hush, Verney, 
bethink yourself. How could I ever face your 
mother (were you indeed to survive the en- 
counter) with the knowledge that I had ex- 
posed you to danger ; that for me you had loaded 
your soul with blood-guiltiness ?” 

She shuddered and looked delicious. 

“Child/’ said she meltingly, as Lord Verney 
faintly protested, “it must be so. I have felt it 
more than once ; you are too young.” There was 
a conviction in her voice that gave no hope of re- 
prieve, and Lord Verney, who had already found 
out that Mistress Bellairs was too dangerous a 
delight to pursue with comfort, accepted his 
sentence with a Christian resignation that did 
justice to his mother’s training. 

“All, all must now be over between us,” said 
Kitty pathetically, “save a gentle friendship ! 
Your hand, my lord.” 

She reached for his clumsy paw with her de^ 
termined little fingers. 

“Mr. O’Hara,” said she, turning round. “/ for- 
give you. Your hand also, sir.” 

If the clasp she extended to Verney was purely 
official, that with which she now seized O’Hara’s 
cold right hand was eloquent enough with quick 
and secret pressure. But, for the first time in his 


The Bath Comedy 203 

life, perhaps, O’Hara was slow in returning a 
woman’s token. 

“Shake hands,” ordered Mistress Bellairs de- 
cisively, and joined the belligerent’s palms. 

Here Stafford sprang jovially to the assistance 
of the pretty peacemaker. 

“Right, right,” cried he. “Shake hands on it 
like good fellows. Fie ! who could keep up a 
feud under those beaming eyes? — Never be 
downcast, Verney, lad! what did I tell thee, only 
yesterday, in the Pump Room, about thy halo ? — 
Denis, my boy, I’ve always loved thee, but now 
I love thee more than ever, if only thou wilt mix 
us a bowl of punch in right good Irish fashion, 
so that in it we may drown all enmity and drink 
good friendship — and above all toast the divine 
Kitty Bellairs !” 

“Hurroosh,” cried O’Hara, and with a valiant 
gulp determined to swallow his own bitter dis- 
appointment and flood in a tide of warm gaiety 
the cold ache in his heart. “By all means,” cried 
he, wrung Verney ’s hand with feverish cor- 
diality, and gave one last sadly-longing look at 
Kitty and his lovely delusive dream. 

Then spinning round upon himself he demanded 
loudly of the willing landlord, lemons and “the 
craythur — a couple of bottles, my friend — a bowl 


204 


The Bath Comedy 


of sugar and a trifle of wather — the smaller the 
kittle the better it boils.” And: “Wake up, man,” 
cried he, slapping Sir Jasper on the back so that 
the powder flew from that baronet’s cue. “Sure 
we’re all happy, now.” 

“Where’s my wife, sir?” said the gloomy hus- 
band, springing to his feet fiercely. I’ve been 
made a fool of between you, but all this does not 
tell me where my wife is ! Stafford, man, I see 
it now : this has been a blind.” He struck his 
forehead. “Ha, yes I have it now, it was a false 
scent — the villain, the fox is off with her on an- 
other road, with his tongue in his cheek, grin- 
ning to think of me sitting and waiting for them 
at Devizes! — Tom, the chaise, the horses. 
There’s not a moment to be lost !” 

“Devil a horse or chay for me, sir,” cried his 
friend. And nodding at Kitty: “I know when 
I’m in good company,” he pursued, “if you 
don’t — sit down, man, there’s punch brewing. 
Your vengeance will keep hot enough, ha, ha, 
but the punch won’t.” 

“Glory be to God,” cried O’Hara, staring at Sir 
Jasper as if he were a natural curiosity, “I’ve 
known many a madman, but I never knew one 
mad enough yet to run away from a punch- 
bowl !” 


The Bath Comedy 205. 

With lace ruffles neatly turned back from his deft 
hands, O’Hara began to peel the lemons. 

“Do you,” now said Captain Spicer with an in- 
gratiating chirp. “Do you really care for quite 
so much peel in the bowl . . . ahem ?” 

The speaker stopped suddenly and seemed to 
wither quite away under a sudden look from the 
punch-brewer (who had made a movement as 
though to put his knife and lemons down and 
employ his fingers differently) and the next in- 
stant found him whispering in Stafford’s ear: 
“You’re a man of the world, I know, friend 
Stafford,” said he. “No doubt you will laugh 
at my over-nice sense of delicacy, but just now, 
in his ravings, poor O’Hara made a kind of 
threat, I believe, about pulling my nose. What 
would you advise me to do in the matter? Look 
over it, eh?” 

“Certainly,” cried the spark, with a glance of the 
most airy contempt. “Look over it, as straight 
as you can. Look over it, by all means, but as 
you value the symmetry of that ornament to 
your countenance, Captain Spicer — if I were you 
I should keep it well-buttered.” 

* * * * * * * 

With an art of which he alone was master, Cap- 
tain Spicer hereupon vanished from the company. 


20 6 


The Bath Comeay 


without being missed. 


Scene XXIII. 


? IS an orgy !” exclaimed Lady Maria. 



1 “Oh, Jasper !” sobbed Lady Standish. 

“ Twould be interesting to know/’ further trum- 
peted Lady Maria, “which of these gentlemen 
is supposed to have run away with the widow 
Bellairs ?” 

“Oh, Kitty,” sobbed Lady Standish. 

“My God!” said Sir Jasper, laying down his 
reeking glass and hardly believing his eyes. 
Mistress Kitty (seated between O’Hara and Staf- 
ford at the end of the table, while Lord Verney 
and Sir Jasper faced each other), continued, un- 
moved, to sip her fragrant brew and cocked 
her wicked eye at the newcomers, enjoying the 
situation prodigiously. She laid an arresting 
hand upon the cuffs of her neighbours, who, 
all polite amazement, were about to spring to 
their feet. “Keep still,” she said, “keep still 
and let Sir Jasper and his lady first have their 
little explanation undisturbed. Never intermed- 
dle between husband and wife,” she added de- 
murely, “it has always been one of my guiding 


The Bath Comedy 


207 


axioms !” 

“Well, Sir Jasper Standish, these are pretty go- 
ings on !” cried Lady Maria, “for a three months’ 
husband. . . . (Hold up, my poor dear Julia !) 
Profligate !” snorted the old lady, boring the 
baronet through with one gimlet eye. “Disso- 
lute wretch ! highwayman !” 

“I demand,” fluted Lady Standish’s plaintive 
treble (in her gentle obstinate heart she had 
come to the fixed resolution of never allowing 
Sir Jasper out of her sight again), “I demand to 
be brought back to my mother, and to have an 
immediate separation.” 

“Running away with women out of the streets 
of Bath! — A lady, (sniff) supposed to be en- 
gaged to my nevvy ! Poor deluded boy ” 

“And my dearest friend! — oh, Jasper! How 
could you?” 

Sir Jasper broke in upon his wife’s pipe with 
the anguished roar of the goaded: “The devil 
take me,” cried he, “if I don’t think the whole 
world’s going mad ! I elope with the widow Bel- 
lairs, Lady Maria, ma’am? / treacherous, my 
Lady? Ha!” He positively capered with fury 
and wounded feeling and general distraction, as 
he drew the incriminating documents from his 
breast, and flourished them, one in each hand, 


208 


The Bath Comedy 


under the very nose of his accusers. “ What of 
Red Curl, madam ! What of the man who kissed 
the dimple, madam ? What of your lover, 
madam !” 

In his confusion he hurled the last two demands 
straight in Lady Maria’s face, who with all the 
indignation of outraged virtue, exclaimed upon 
her deepest note : 

“Vile slanderer, I deny it !” 

Here Mistress Bellairs deemed the moment ripe 
for her delicate interference. 

“My lovely Standish,” she cried, “you look sadly. 
Indeed I fear you will swoon, if you do not sit. 
Pray, Mr. Stafford, conduct my Lady Standish 
to the arm-chair and make her sip a glass of 
cordial from the bowl yonder.” 

“Oh, Kitty!” cried Lady Standish, and devoured 
the widow’s face with eager eyes to see whether 
friend or enemy was heralded there. 

“My dear,” whispered Kitty, “nothing could be 
going better. Sit down, I tell you, and I prom- 
ise you that in ten minutes you will have Sir 
Jasper on his knees.” 

Then running up to Sir Jasper and speaking with 
the most childlike and deliberate candour: 
“Pray, Sir Jasper,” said she, “and what might 
you be prating of letters and red curls ? Strange 


The Bath Comedv 


209 


now,” she looked round the company with dewy, 
guileless eyes, “I lost a letter only a day or two 
ago at your house — a,” she dropped her lids with 
a most entrancing little simper, “a rather private 
letter. I believe I must have lost it in dear Julia’s 
parlour, near the sofa, for I remember I pulled 

out my handkerchief ” 

“Good God !” said Sir Jasper, hoarsely, and 
glared at her, all doubt, and crushed the letters 
in his hand. 

“Could you — could you hav^ found it, Sir Jasper, 
I wonder ? Mercy on me ! And then this morn- 
ing . . . ’tis the strangest thing ... I 

get another letter, another rather private letter, 
and after despatching a few notes to my friends, 
for the life of me, I could not find the letter any 
more ! And I vow I wanted it, for I had scarce 
glanced at it.” 

“Oh, Mistress Bellairs !” cried Sir Jasper. “Tell 
me,” cried he panting, “what did these letters 
contain ?” 

“La!” said she, “what a question to put to a 
lady !” 

“For God’s sake, madam !” said he, and in truth 
he looked piteous. 

“Then, step apart,” said she, “and for dear Julia’s 
sake I will confide in you, as a gentleman.” 


210 


The Bath Comedy 


She led him to the moonlit window, while all fol- 
lowed them with curious eyes — except Verney, 
who surreptitiously drank his punch, and slid 
away from the table, with the fear of his aunt 
in his heart. And now Mistress Kitty hung her 
head, looked exceedingly bashful and exceedingly 
coy. She took up a corner of her dainty flow- 
ered gown and plaited it in her fingers. 

“Was there,” she asked, “was there anything of 
the description of a — of a trifling lock of hair, 
in the first letter — ’twas somewhat of an auburn 
hue?” 

“Confusion !” exclaimed the baronet, thrusting 
the fateful letters into her hand, and turning on 
his heel, stamped his foot, muttering furiously : 
“Curse the fool that wrote them, and the feather- 
head that dropped them !” 

“And what of the fool that picked them up and 
read them?” whispered Mistress Kitty’s voice in 
his ears, sharp as a slender stiletto. 

She looked him up and down with a fine dis- 
dainful mockery. 

“Why will you men write?” said she meaningly. 
“Letters are dangerous things!” 

He stood convicted, without a word. 

“La ! what a face !” she cried aloud now. “I pro- 
test you quite frighten me. And how is it you. 


The Bath Comedy 21 1 

are not overjoyed, Sir Jasper? Here is your 
Julia proved whiter than the driven snow and 
more injured than Griselidis, and you not at her 
feet !” 

“Where is she?” said Sir Jasper, half strangled 
by contending emotions. 

“Why, there, in that arm-chair in the ingle-nook.” 
Mistress Kitty smoothed her restored treasures 
quite tenderly, folded them neatly and slipped 
them into the little brocade bag that hung at 
her waist. 

* * * * * * * 

“Indeed, Lady Standish,” said Mr. Stafford — “a 
glass of punch will do you no harm.” 

“Punch?” echoed Lady Maria — then turning 
fiercely on her nephew : “What, my Lord !” said 
she, “would your mother say ? Why you are pos- 
itively reeking with the dissolute fumes !” 

“My dear Lady Maria,” interposed the urbane 
Stafford, “ a mere cordial, a grateful fragrance 
to heighten the heart after fatigue and emotions, 
a sovereign thing, madam, against the night air 
— the warmest antidote. A sip of it, I assure you, 
would vastly restore you.” 

“I,” she said, “I, drink with the profligate and 
the wanton! The deceiving husband and the 
‘treacherous friend !” She gave the fiercer refusal 


2J2 


The Bath Comedy 


for that she felt so strongly in her old bones the 
charm of his description. 

“Pooh, pooh ! my dear ladies, if that is all,” said 
Mr. Stafford, “then, by Heaven, let the glass 
circulate at once ! Indeed, your La’ship,” turning 
to Lady Standish, “so far from our good Jas- 
per having anything to say to Mistress Bellairs’ 
presence here to-night, let me assure you that he 
and I set out alone at an early hour this evening, 
with no other object but to be of service to your 
ladyship — whom your anxious husband had been 
led to believe was likely to come this way . . . 
somewhat — ah — unsuitably protected as he 
thought.” 

Then he bent down and whispered into Lady 
Standish’s pretty ear (which she willingly enough 
lent to such consoling assurances) : “As for 
your friend,” he went on, “our delightful if vola- 
tile Bellairs — she came here with a vastly differ- 
ent person to Sir Jasper : poor O’Hara yonder — 
who’s drinking all the punch ! She will tell you 
herself how it happened. . . . But, gracious 

stars, my dear Lady Maria, have you not yet 
been given a glass of the — of Mr. O’Hara’s res- 
torative !” 

“Allow me,” cried Kitty, who, having just set- 
tled Sir Jasper’s business for him, had now free- 


213 


The Bath Comedy 

dom to place her energies elsewhere. “Dearest 
Lady Maria — how sweet of you to join us in our 
little reconciliation feast!” She took a brim- 
ming glass from O’Hara’s hands and held it, with 
a winning smile, for Lady Maria’s acceptance. 
“Madam !” responded the matron, scowled, drew 
her voluminous skirts together and became im- 
penetrably deaf. 

“Ah,” cried the widow on her topmost notes, 
“Madam, how I should have revered such a rela- 
tive as yourself! Next to the joy of calling my 
Lord Verney’s mother, my mother, would have 
been that of calling his aunt, my aunt ! But the 
dream is over, Lord Verney and I can never be 
more to each other than we are now.” 

“Eh?” the Dowager recovered her hearing. 
“What’s that, what’s that, nevvy?” 

“ ’Tis alas, true,” said Lord Verney, with great 
demureness, “Mistress Bellairs has given me back 
my word.’” 

“Forgive me, dear Lady Maria,” trilled the 
widow. 

“Mercy on us!” ejaculated the old lady; then, 
as if unconsciously, groped for the glass in Mis- 
tress Kitty’s hand. 

“Sit down, sit down all!” cried Mistress Bel- 
lairs. Stafford echoed with a jovial shout. There 


214 


The Bath Comedy 


was a call for a fresh bowl. O’Hara's eyes be- 
gan to dance, his tongue to resume its glib- 
ness. And Lady Maria was surprised to find 
how long her tumbler took to empty, but, curi- 
ously, never failed to be looking the other way 
when Mistress Bellairs with tenderest solicitude 
plied the silver ladle in her direction. 

“I hope,” said the ancient lady, now wreathed in 
smiles, “I hope that Mr. O’Hara’s cordial is not 
really stronger than Madeira wine — which my 
physician, that charming Sir George, says is all 
I ought to drink.” 

“Madeira?” cried Mr. O’Hara, “Madeira wine 
is a very fair drink. . . . It is a fine 
stirring dhrink. But ’tis apt, I’m afraid, 
to heat the blood overmuch. Now Claret 
?” he went on, pursuing the thesis, 
“Claret’s the wine for gentlemen — only for the 
divil of a way it has of lying cold upon the stom- 
ach . . . after four or five bottles. . . . 

Do I hear you say : ‘Port,’ over there, Tom, me 
boy ? I’ll not deny but that Port has qualities, it’s 
strong, it’s mellow — but it’s heavy. It sends a 
fellow to sleep, and that’s a tirrible bad mark 
against it ; for ’tis near as bad for a man to 
sleep when he has a bottle going, as when he 
has a lady coming. Then there’s Champagne for 


215 


The Bath Comedy 

you : there’s exhilaration in champagne, ’tis the 
real tipple for a gentleman when he’s alone — in 
a tete-a-tete — but ’tis not the wine for great com- 
pany. Now, my dear friends,” said O’Hara, 
stirring his new brew with the touch of a past 
master, “if you want to know a wine that com- 
bines the fire of the Madeira with the elgance of 
the Claret, the power and mellowness of the 
Port with the exhilaration of the Champagne — 
there’s nothing in the world can compare to a 
fine screeching bowl of Brandy Punch !” 


Scene XXIV. 

W HEN Mistress Kitty had sipped half a 
glass with great show of relish and rak- 
ishness, and Lady Standish, under protest, had 
sucked a few spoonfuls ; when Lady Maria, stuck 
in the middle of her fourth helping, protested that 
she really could not finish the tumbler and forth- 
with began to show signs of incoherence and som- 
nolence; when O’Hara broke into snatches of 
song, and Lord Verney began to make calFs eyes 
afresh at the lost Mistress Kitty ; when Sir Jasper, 
hanging round his wife’s chair, showed un- 
equivocal signs of repentance and a longing for 


2l6 


The Bath Comedy 


reconciliation, and Stafford himself became more 
pointed in his admiration of Mistress Kitty and a 
trifle broader in his jests than was quite con- 
sistent with his usual breeding; the little widow 
deemed it, at last, time to break up the party. 
There was a vast bustle, a prodigious ordering 
and counter-ordering. 

“Never mind me,” whispered Stafford, ever full 
of good humour and tact, into Sir Jasper’s ear, 
“take your wife home, man, I’ll sleep here if 
needs be.” 

“Not a foot,” asserted O’Hara, apparently quite 
sober, and speaking with the most pleasant de- 
liberation in the world, “not a foot will I stir 
from this place so long as there is a lemon left.” 
“The cursed scoundrel,” cried Lord Verney, bab- 
bling with fury as he returned from the stables, 
“the scoundrel, Spicer, has driven off with my 
curricle !” 

“Then shall we be a merry trio to drink daylight 
in,” said Stafford, and cheered. 

“Come, dear Lady Maria,” said Kitty. “I shall 
take care of you. I will give you a seat in my 
chaise; we shall drive home together.” 
“Certainly, my dear, certainly,” mumbled the 
dowager ; “who is that remarkably agreeable per- 
son?” she requested to know of Stafford in her 


The Bath Comedy 


217 


prodigiously audible whisper. “My dear,” she 
turned again to Kitty, “I like you wonderfully. 
I cannot quite remember your name, my dear, 
but we will go home together.” 

“Dear, dear Lady Maria!” cried Mistress Kitty, 
honey sweet. “My Lord Verney, give your arm 
to your revered relative — mind you lead her care- 
fully,” she said, with all the imps in her eyes 
dancing, “for I fear Mr. Stafford’s cordial has 
proved a little staggering — after the night air! 
And warn her ladyship’s attendant to be ready 
to escort us back in my carriage.” 

Then, taking advantage of Sir Jasper’s absence — 
that gentleman might even then be heard cursing 
his sleepy servants in the yard — Mistress Kitty 
ran over to Lady Standish, who stood wistful and 
apart at the ingle-nook. 

“My dear,” she murmured, “the game is in your 
hands.” 

“Ah, no!” returned the other. “Oh, Kitty, you 
have been an evil counsellor!” 

“Is this your gratitude?” retorted Kitty, and 
pinched her friend with vicious little fingers. 
“Why, woman, your husband never thought so 
much of you in his life as he does now! Why, 
there has never been so much fuss made over you 
since you were born. Are these your thanks?” 


2l8 


The Bath Comedy 


“Oh, for the moment when I can fly to his bosom 
and tell him all ! My foolish endeavour to make 
him jealous, my sinful pretence that he had a 
rival in my heart!” 

“What?” exclaimed the widow, and her whisper 
took all the emphasis of a shriek. “Fly to his 
bosom ? Then I have done with you ! Bring him 
to his knees you mean, madam. Tell him all? 
Tell him all, forsooth, let him know you have 
made a fool of him, all for nothing; let him think 
that you never had an idea beyond pining for his 
love ; that no other man ever thought of you, that 
he has never had a rival, never will have one, that 
you are merely his own uninteresting Julia whom 
nobody wants. Why, Lady Standish, ’tis laying 
down the arms when the battle is yours. Sheer 
insanity! Prodigious, prodigious!” cried Mis- 
tress Kitty. “Is it possible that you and I are of 
the same sex?” 

Bewildered, yet half convinced, Lady Standish 
listened and wondered. 

“Be guided by me,” whispered Kitty again. “In- 
deed, my dear, I mean well by you. Keep your 
secret if you love your husband. Keep it more 
preciously than you would keep your youth and 
your beauty ; for I tell you ’tis now your most val- 
uable possession. Here,” said she, and took a 


21 6 


The Bath Comedy 

letter from her famous bag and thrust it into 
Julia’s hands, “here is what will bring him to his 
knees ! Oh, what a game you have upon this 
drive home if you know how to play it !” 

“What is this, now?” cried Lady Standish. 
“Hush!” ordered Kitty, and clapped her friend’s 
hand over the letter. “Promise, promise ! Here 
comes your lord !” 

Sir Jasper had approached them as she spoke; 
he now bowed confusedly and took his wife’s 
hand. But : 

“A word in your ear,” said Mistress Kitty, ar- 
resting him as they were about to pass out. “A 
word in your ear, sir. If a man has a treasure 
at home he would keep for himself, he will do 
well to guard it! An unwatched jewel, my 
good sir, invites thieves. Good night !” 

* * * * * * * 

And now in the great room of the Bear Inn were 
left only three : the two gallant gentlemen, 
O’Hara and Stafford, and Mistress Kitty. 
Mistress Kitty’s game had been successfully 
played out; and yet the lady lingered. 

“Good night,” she began, then shot a glance at 
Stafford. “I wonder,” she said innocently, “if 
my carriage be ready, and whether Lady Maria 
is well installed?” 


220 


The Bath Comedy 


“I will see/’ said Stafford simply, and vanished. 
O’Hara stood by the table, slowly dipping the 
ladle into the punch and absently pouring the 
liquor back into the bowl again. She sidled round 
to him. 

“Denis!” said she. 

He turned his wildly-bright eyes upon her, but 
made no answer. “I’m going back,” said she, and 
held out her hand. 

He carefully put down the ladle, took the tips 
of her litlle fingers and kissed them. But his 
hands and his lips were cold. 

“Glory be to God,” said he, “it’s a grand game 
you played with me . . . the Bath Comedy 

entirely, Kitty.” 

Then he dropped her hand and took up the punch- 
ladle again with downcast looks. 

“Will you not give me your arm to my carriage ?” 
said she, after a slight pause. 

“Ah, Kitty, sure haven’t you broke my heart for 
me, and has not the punch robbed me of my 
legs !” 

His wild bright eyes were deeply sad as he turned 
them on her, and he was pale as death. 

She drew back quickly, frowned, hesitated, 
frowned again, and then brightened up once 
more. 


221 


The Bath Comedy 

“Then, sir,” said she, “when your legs are re- 
stored to you, pray let them conduct your heart 
round to my lodgings, and we shall see what can 
be done towards mending it.” 

She dropped him a curtsey and was gone. 

As Stafford folded her into the chaise he whis- 
pered : 

“If ever I have a chance of running away with 
you, Kitty, Til take very good care not to let 
you know which road I mean to choose!” 

******* 


Scene XXV. 

A S the carriage rolled homewards, on the Bath 
Road, Lady Standish, both hands folded 
over the mysterious letter, sat staring out of the 
window with unseeing eyes. The dawn had be- 
gun to break upon a cloudless sky; the air was 
chill and brisk; mists wreathed white scarves 
over the fields. She felt conscious in every fibre 
of her being that Sir Jasper was eagerly con- 
templating her in the cold grey light. Heart and 
brain were in a turmoil ; the anguish, the violent 
emotions, the successive scenes of the last forty- 
eight hours passed again before her mind like a 


222 


The Bath Comedy 


phantasmagoria. Partly because of Mistress Bel- 
lairs’ advice and partly because of a certain wom- 
anly resentment, which, gentle as she was, still 
reared itself within her, she did not even cast a 
look upon her husband, but sat mutely, gazing at' 
the land. Presently she became aware that he 
had slid an arm behind her waist. She trembled 
a little, but did not turn to him. 

“Julia/’ said he, in a muffled uncertain tone, 
“Julia, I — I have done you injustice.” Then, for 
jealousy is as ill to extinguish as a fire that 
smoulders, a flame of the evil passion leaped up 
again with him. “But you must admit,” said he, 
“that I had cause. Your own words, I may say 
your own confession ” 

Lady Standish turned her head, lifted heavy lids, 
and for a moment fixed upon him the most beau- 
tiful eyes in the world. 

“Nay,” said she, “I made no confession.” Her 
tongue trembled upon other protestations, yet 
Kitty’s warning carried the day. 

“Tell me,” said he, and bent to her, “tell me was 
it Lord Verney after all?” 

Lady Standish again raised her eyes to his face, 
and could such a thing have been possible in a 
creature whose very being was all tenderness, he 
would have sworn that in her gaze there was con- 


The Bath Comedy 


223 


tempt. 

“Sir Jasper,” said she, “it never was Lord Ver- 
ney !” And then she added : “Has there not been 
enough of this?” 

As she spoke she moved her hands and involun- 
tarily looked down at the letter she held. Then 
she sat as if turned to stone. The letter was in 
Sir Jasper’s writing and addressed to Mistress 
Bellairs ! 

“What have you there ?” cried he. 

“Nay,” said she, “I know not, for ’tis not my 
letter. But you will know.” And she held it up 
to him, and her hand did not tremble, yet was a 
cold fear upon her. “You wrote it,” she said 
He stared and his countenance changed, utter 
discomposure fell upon him. 

“Julia,” cried he, “Julia, upon my honour! I 
swear ’twas nothing, less than nothing, a mere 
idle bit of gallantry — a jest!” As he spoke he 
fell upon one knee in the chaise, at her feet. 
“Then I may read it?” said she. 

“Ah, Julia!” cried he, and encircled her with his 
arms. She felt the straining eagerness of his 
grasp, she felt his heart beat stormily. With a 
sudden warmth she knew that after all his love 
was hers. 

Then she had an inspiration worthy of a cleverer 


224 


The Bath Comedy 


woman, but love has his own geniuses. She dis- 
engaged herself from his embrace and put the 
letter into his hand. , 

“Take it,” said she. 

“Julia,” he cried and shook from head to foot, 
and the tears sprang to his eyes, “I never gave 
her a serious thought. I vow I hate the woman.” 
“Then tear it up,” said Lady Standish, with a 
superhuman magnanimity that almost turned 
her faint. 

He rose and tore the letter into shreds quickly, 
lest she should repent, and flung them out of the 
window. She watched the floating pieces flutter 
and vanish. In her secret soul she said to her- 
self : 

“Mistress Bellairs and I shall be very good 
friends at a distance!” 

Her husband was kneeling at her feet again. 
“Angel,” cried he pleadingly, and once more she 
was in his arms; and yet his jealous heart kept 
growling within him, like a surly dog that will 
not be silenced. “Julia,” said he in her ear, “but 
one word, one word, my love! Julia, is there 
anyone, anything between us?” 

“Oh, that,” she said, and smiled archly, “that, 
sir, you must discover for yourself.” Her head 
sank on his shoulder as she spoke. 


The Bath Comedy 225 

“You torture me!” he murmured. But she 
knew that he had never kissed her with such 
passion in. all his. life before. 

******* 

As her chaise, followed .on the road, some hun- 
dred yards or so behind Sir Jasper’s, Mistress 
Bellairs, sitting beside Lady Maria (who snored 
the whole way with rhythmic steadiness) gazed 
across the livid fields towards the low horizon 
where the. slow fires of dawn were pulsing into 
brightness. She was in .deeply reflective mood. 

In her excited, busy brain she revolved many im- 
portant questions and weighed the gains and 
losses, in her game* of “Love and Hazard” with 
all the seriousness of the gambler homeward 
bound after a heavy night. 

“At. least,” she thought upon a little sigh, with 
some.. complacency, “I did a vastly good turn to 
my Lady Standish. But the woman is a fool, if a 
sweet one, and fools, are past permanent mending. 
I did well,” thought she, “to condemn the Calf — 
there is no doubt of that.” She glanced at Lady 
Maria’s withered countenance, unlovely and un- 
dignified in her stupor — “The menagerie would 
have been the death of me, promptly. . . 

But, my poor O’Hara ! How could I ever have 
called him a cucumber? There was love for the 


226 


The Bath Comedy 


taking, now — yet no! Worshipper, vastly well; 
but husband ? not for me, not for me ! Bless me,” 
she cried to herself testily, “is a woman to have 
no choice between mid-winter, green spring, or 
the dog days? If I ever allow myself to be ab- 
ducted again, ’twill be with your Man of the 
World — one with palate enough to relish me 
without wanting to swallow me at a gulp.” 

She paused in her train of thought to laugh at 
the recollection of Mr. Stafford’s parting speech. 
“There is an easy heart for you !” she murmured. 
“A gallant gentleman with as pretty a wit as 
O’Hara himself, and every whit as good a leg. 
Perhaps,” thought Mistress Kitty, yawned and 
grew sleepy ; nodded her delicate head ; dreamed 
then a little dream and saw a silver Beau in the 
moonlight, and woke up with a smile. The spires 
of Bath Cathedral pierced silver grey through a 
golden mist ; far beneath her gaze, as the chaise 
began to tip the crest of the great hill, like a silver 


ribbon ran the river. “Perhaps, 
see,” said the widow.” 


We shall 


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